TODAY: Interior Minister calls for internet monitoring; no Russian support for Syria sanctions; Belarus will not respond to Putin’s comments about union; Magnitsky case reopened to clear officials?  Russia rejects Polish crash criticism; Nagorno-Karabakh escalating; polling stations to be set up in breakaway Georgian regions; Sakhalin case studies; new British Ambassador.

Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev is calling for limitations on and monitoring of the Internet that would help preserve traditional values, saying that Russia’s youth ‘have forgotten the love songs of old, the waltzes, everything that united us, our background and our roots’.  He also expressed concern over the extent of online extremism, claiming that there are currently 7,500 extremist websites active on Runet.  Russia has indicated that it would not support sanctions against Syria, but may not oppose a U.N. resolution against current violence.  Vladimir Putin’s suggestion of a union with Russia and Belarus gives Alexander Lukashenko ‘a chance to pose as the defender of Belarusian sovereignty and try to rebuild his tattered support,’ says the FT. Belarus’ foreign ministry say it ‘does not consider it necessary to comment on [Putin’s] statement’.