TODAY: Opposition leaders petition the President; journalists fear for freedom of press; Lake Baikal paper mill angers locals; monument to Sakharov; Khodorkovsky on corruption.  Russia concerned about US Patriot deployment; Ukraine changes name of Victory Day.  Deputies who failed to declare income will not face punishment.  Olympic fix; cybercyrillic

Opposition leaders have presented President Medvedev’s chief of staff with a petition asking him to assist them in having their rallies sanctioned.  The Other Russia reports that Oleg Ptashkin, leader of an independent journalists’ trade union, has told a press conference that journalists’ rights are decreasing and censorship increasing.  A Moscow court has thrown out a defamation lawsuit filed by Vedomosti against Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov for accusing the newspaper of empathizing with terrorists.  Demonstrators have assembled in Siberia’s city of Irkutsk to demand the protection of Lake Baikal and the closure of the paper mill which they say is polluting the UNESCO protected lake. Three activists in Russia’s eastern Irkutsk Oblast have begun a hunger strike to protest high utility prices and corruption in the region.  Police have said that the stories of criminal gangs attempting to extort money from a widow of the Raspadskaya mine disaster cannot be proved true.  A monument to prominent human rights activist Andrei Sakharov will be erected in the northwestern Russian city of Kirov.  RFE/RL has an interview with Anatoly Karpov, as he ups the ante in his bid to become the president of the World Chess Federation.  ‘Many Russian ‘corruptioneers’ are shifting their ill-gotten gains to China, clearly hoping that the Beijing government will ignore international crime’: Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky has penned a piece in the Washington Post on the effects of corruption in Russia.