TODAY: Russia run by the KGB? OSCE to boycott presidential elections. Aleksanyan to receive treatment in a civilian clinic. Polish Prime Minister in Russia for “rough” talks. According to one sociologist, “an astounding 78% of the country’s leadership has links to the KGB or FSB.” As expected, observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have announced that they will boycott next’s month’s presidential election – “the least competitive in Russian history” – because of “severe restrictions and concerns over the fairness of [the] poll.” “We have a responsibility to all 56 participating states to fulfil our mandate, and the Russian Federation has created limitations that are not conducive to undertaking election observation in accordance with it,” said a spokesman. Andrei Bogdanov’s Democratic party is “widely seen as a Kremlin-controlled project to draw votes away from actual opposition candidates and give voters a tame liberal option.”