TODAY: Orthodox Church backing for Putin a ‘gamble’? Former judge denounces legal system; anarchist expelled; private tv channel raided; dissonance moving to provinces; Medvedev shuffles governors; Lavrov warns West on selling weapons to Syrian rebels; U.S. reset to dissolve with return of Putin? 

As the Orthodox Church comes under fire for its treatment of Pussy Riot, Patriarch Kirill stands accused of extravagance over images of him wearing an expensive watch.  The church’s recent ‘shift towards’ Vladimir Putin ‘is a gamble which some experts say could yet backfire and undermine its authority’, says Reuters.  The chief of police has finally banned officers from forwarding complaints against local officials to the subject of the complaint.  Former judge Sergei Zlobin has criticised the justice system, saying that he was forced to resign for trying to bring order to the courts: ‘A Russian judge is the most dependent of people.’  Police have searched the offices of privately-owned television channel REN-TV.  The FSB is expelling a Finnish national who has lived in Russia for 13 years, due to his involvement in an anarchist movement and his participation in opposition protests over the winter.