TODAY: Putin and Hollande meet, sign deals; children’s rights ombudsman lashes out at critics; Gessen detained; Iraq arms deal; top Internet companies revealed; USM sells stake in Mail.ru; Bashnefts $5 billion Dutch deal; domestic violence; wrestling.

President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart, Francois Hollande, had a ‘frank and direct’ meeting in the Kremlin yesterday, leading to a number of agreements and joint ventures.  Some disagreements over the Syrian conflict were maintained, with Hollande calling for new partners to broker talks, but insisting that the two ‘have progressed’ on the issue.  Putin suggested that the two should open a bottle of vodka before discussing the issue, because ‘a bottle of good wine wouldn’t be enough’.  There is no indication as yet that Hollande raised the question of Sergei Magnitsky with Putin, as a new poll revealed that 85% of French citizens would support their own version of the Magnitsky Act, and a number of rights activists urged Hollande to adopt such a measure, but Putin defended Russia’s human rights record to Hollande, saying, ‘I don’t think we had any problems with human rights in 2012’.  In response to accusations that he has politicised the death of adopted orphan Max Shatto, children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov says that calls for him to resign his post are mostly made by ‘pedophiles’.  Journalist Masha Gessen was briefly detained on suspicion of videoing classified facilities whilst visiting imprisoned Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova.  One of Dmitry Medvedev’s 2011 speeches has made it onto a list of extremist materials.