TODAY: 6,000 Nationalists march against Putin, his industrial support wanes; homophobic attacks; prosecutors probe Left Front; Kirill warns against return to troubles; Lavrov in Cairo for Syria; Japan to build Russian gas pipeline?

A reported 6,000 nationalists (‘from moderate to far-right’) gathered in Moscow for an anti-Kremlin march yesterday, with a small group detained for ‘trying to fire a flare gun at a helicopter’.  The march was a ‘highjacking’ of the National Unity Day holiday, created by President Vladimir Putin, and a protest against the President for ‘ignoring the rights of ethnic Slavs’.  RFE/RL has video of the march and arrests.  In his first appearance since rumours of his ill health, Putin marked his national holiday at a Moscow ceremony.  Putin’s industrial support is being tested by hunger strikes over unpaid wages in Sverdlovsk this year, says Reuters.  The Guardian interviews Alyona Korolyova, whose girlfriend was kicked in the head during an organised anti-gay attack on a Moscow bar last week, highlighting a new violent trend of homophobia.