TODAY: Positive feeling in run-up to Obama meeting; Russia says only US President respects Red Army contribution in WWII; WTO motives analyzed; oligarchs in the spotlight; Hermitage museum arrives in Amsterdam

US-Russian negotiations on the START replacement treaty are apparently taking place in a ‘constructive and businesslike manner’.  The Kremlin has reportedly declared that Barack Obama is the only western leader who has not denigrated the role of the Soviet army in defeating the Nazis.  In a town in Kazakhstan, people have gathered to commemorate the twenty-year anniversary of the closure of a Soviet nuclear testing ground, where, in the words of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, ‘millions of Kazakh citizens fell victim to this nuclear madness’.  Russia has reportedly played down the nuclear threat from North Korea, arguing that its belligerence is principally rhetorical.