TODAY: Deaths in detention reach hundreds; step forward for media freedom with damages ruling; Nikolai Alekseyev speaks out on abduction; Baturina puts the blame for anti-Luzhkov campaign on 2012 election. Pentagon takes issue with missile sale to Syria; ersatz arms; flipping police cars

The cases of Sergei Magnitsky and Vera Trifonova may be among the best known, but according to findings by the State Duma Committee on Legislation, over 200 seriously ill persons, either on trial or awaiting a verdict, died in Russia’s pretrial detention facilities in 2009.  The Supreme Court has ruled that courts should not award vast sums in compensation in libel suits against the media, which are of a regular occurrence in Russia (see here for today’s example) as this practice can be too often exploited to stifle freedom of expression.  The New York Times examines the culmination of acts of intimidation perpetrated against gay rights advocate Nikolai Alekseyev: his recent two-day abduction by the authorities.