TODAY: Fast food backdrop sets relaxed tone for friendly Obama-Medvedev meeting; ex-Prime Minister urges US to see through Medvedev’s modernization drive; hopes for cooperation on missile defense; has Russia resurrected idea of second military base in Kyrgyzstan?  Charges against terminally ill Yukos lawyer dropped; Nobel Prize winner sets about campaigning for Khodorkovsky; rights ombudsman attracts United Russia criticism; police chief dismissed over Robin Hood gang; land art

Burgers were on the menu and comfortably-reset relations on the agenda at the Obama-Medvedev meeting.  ‘More than anything, the events surrounding Mr. Medvedev’s visit served to underscore both the personal rapport the two men have developed’ says the New York Times.   For a video of the press conference, see Bloomberg.  ‘The lack of major news from the meeting […] was news itself, suggesting as it did a businesslike relationship increasingly devoid of high drama’: the Washington Post suggests the knowingly casual tone to the two presidents’ meeting emphasized the detente.  Mikhail Kasyanov, former Prime Minister during Vladimir Putin’s presidency, has apparently warned the US not to fall for Dmitry Medvedev’s modernization rhetoric.  The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall explains why the gas war with Belarus bodes ill for Medvedev’s promises of reform.  ‘Cosmetic modernization‘ is what Medvedev’s projects amount to, suggests Brian Whitmore in a detailed analysis from the Power Vertical.