TODAY: Magnitsky suspect pleads not guilty; Gessen met with Putin about getting her job back; Putin talks about his staged stunts; Alrosa sells iron ore stake to Evraz; RUSAL seeks Chinese investment.

Dmitry Kratov, the only defendant in the case of Sergei Magnitsky’s death in custody, has pleaded not guilty.  President Vladimir Putin invited Masha Gessen to meet him at the Kremlin in a bid to get her re-employed at the travel magazine that fired her for refusing to cover his endangered crane stunt, but she refused.  During the meeting, Putin also apparently admitted that his Black Sea dive was a set-up, and that some of his wildlife stunts (the New York Times has compiled an index of these, the most recent of which was spoofed by two Krasnoyarsk residents this week) have been staged. ‘Of course, there are excesses. And I am enraged about it.’  Putin also followed Sergei Lavrov in condemning the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya earlier this week, and warned Arab leaders to take responsibility for their territories.