Mark Franchetti of the Times of London has a very good piece today on the campaign to free Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina:

Russians have been especially moved by the plight of Bakhmina’s two children, now seven and 11, who do not know their mother is in jail and believe their father when he tells them she is away working. He is allowed to visit her several times a year. Yelena Bonner, the widow of Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet nuclear physicist who won the Nobel peace prize, has written an open letter asking for Bakhmina’s release. “Svetlana Bakhmina has already completed the greater part of her term,” said Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president, who backs the campaign. “She has two little boys, is pregnant and is due to give birth in December. Why hold her behind bars?”