TODAY: Putin invites visitors to Olympics, sacks official for delays; daylight savings may be resumed to cash in on broadcasting; $4 billion in misappropriated defence funds; Ashurkov raided over Navalny case; Lebedev case upheld; new Kuril Islands row; Naftogaz won’t pay.

President Vladimir Putin invited to Russia ‘all those who love sports and fair uncompromising struggle’ for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and then sacked Akhmed Bilalov, the Olympics official he ridiculed on state television earlier this week over the delayed completion of a ski jump. Yesterday marked the beginning of the one-year countdown to the games.  Former President Dmitry Medvedev is reluctant to reverse his 2011 decision to abandon daylight saving time, despite complaints that winter darkness now extends into the late morning.  But the measure is being reconsidered by the Kremlin in the run-up to the Olympics, as ‘broadcast rights worth billions’ are at stake.  Accusations of the exploitation of migrant workers at the Sochi site are continuing to appear. ‘An Uzbek worker at the Main Media Centre said he was not paid for his labour between December 2011 and February 2012. “I worked for almost three months, others for five months, for nothing.”’  The Audit Chamber has discovered nearly $4 billion in misappropriated funds from the 2012 defence budget.  The market value of the Kremlin’s assets is more than $3.3 trillion, and 50% higher than the country’s 2012 GDP.