The unlikely news that Vladimir Putin has offered an annual award for excellence in print journalism to Khimki forest reporter Mikhail Beketov has been criticized, entirely justifiably, as a disingenuous attempt to quell international concerns about the state of media freedom in Russia.  The news of the award has at least the virtue of turning some attention back towards the horrific attack perpetrated against Mr Beketov, who lost three fingers, a leg and was severely brain-damaged following a beating by unidentified thugs after he began investigating corruption in the Moscow suburb.  But does little else, say fellow members of the press.  From the New York Times:

 Another of this year’s honorees, Sergei Parkhomenko, called the award for Mr. Beketov “absolutely cynical.”

“The people who crippled him are still free, and some of them occupy important political positions,” Mr. Parkhomenko, editor in chief of the magazine Around the World, said in an interview with the radio station Business FM.

Mr. Parkhomenko told another interviewer that he did not intend to go to the Kremlin to accept the prize.