TODAY: Putin celebrates Orthodox Christmas; security deployed in Sochi, victims of bombs still hospitalised; Khodorkovsky vows to campaign for political prisoners; Church has ‘gay system’; Usmanov is Russia’s richest; Syria to offer Russian for schoolchildren.

Orthodox Russians are celebrating Christmas today; President Vladimir Putin attended a service at Sochi’s new church.  Over 30,000 police officers and interior ministry troops are being deployed in the region to maintain security during next month’s Olympic games due to intensified fears of a terrorist attack in the wake of the double bombing in Volgograd; over 60 people are still in hospital recovering from their injuries, three of them in a serious condition.  28 people were detained in Moscow’s Manezh Square last night for taking part in an action in support of the Bolotnaya Square protesters who many see as political prisoners.  Putin insists that Russia does not have any of these; since his release, Mikhail Khodorkovsky has vowed to campaign for their release: ‘I cannot live in peace knowing that there are political prisoners behind bars.’  Each of Russia’s regions is to have its own drones, ostensibly for rescue operations.