TODAY: Lukashenko slams democracy, emphasizes loyalty to Moscow; Latvia and Russia to study historical relations; Tymoshenko charged over funds; Lavrov warns against START amendments. Go Russia at a standstill; Limonov plans to register Other Russia party; December Strategy 31 rally granted permission; investigation into Putin’s hospital visit; ban on towers in historical St Petersburg

Apparently re-elected Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko believes that Sunday’s elections were ‘so open and transparent that people could have confused it for a reality television show’.  Nonetheless he also vowed not to let ‘muddle-headed democracy‘ hold sway in the country.  An observer mission from the Russia-led CIS has pledged that the elections were legitimate.  Anne Applebaum sees the brutal repression of opposition protesters as evidence of Lukaschenko’s decision to return to the Eastern model after a recent year or so of flirting with the EU and West.  ‘In a single stroke, Mr. Lukashenko thus spelled the end of efforts by the European Union and the United States to cultivate him‘: this commentator agrees.  Renewed loyalty to Russia has been confirmed by the President himself, who has stated, ‘I will have patience and bear all ills to ensure that we do not drift away from Russia’.  How does the Kremlin feel about this?  A photographer from a St. Petersburg newspaper has declared a hunger strike after being sentenced to 15-day jail term in Belarus for participating in Sunday’s opposition rally in Minsk.  The Russian embassy has condemned the use of force by Minsk’s Special Police Forces against Russian reporters.  ‘If Europe blew its chance to change the Belarus dynamic, it was partly because it did not try hard enough’. Simon Tisdall in the Guardian argues.