TODAY: Markets re-open on a high; EEU creating pressure among potential members; Polonsky could be detained until end of month; tax on screenings of foreign films; cosmonauts and the space industry; new radar stations; wolf hunt.

Russian markets re-opened yesterday after the New Year’s holiday and both RTS and the MICEX started the year well thanks to ‘an improvement in global sentiment’, rising by 3.22% and 2.72% respectively.  Vladimir Putin’s goal of creating a Eurasian Economic Union to rival the EU ‘is creating intense pressure within countries like Armenia, Moldova, and Ukraine to pick one path or the other’.  Tycoon Sergei Polonsky (who made headlines in 2011 for his televised fisticuffs with Alexander Lebedev), currently being held in Cambodia over accusations that they detained and attacked local sailors, may not be released on bail until the end of this month.  United Russia wants to begin taxing screening of foreign movies and introduce exhibition quotas for local films in a bid to boost the domestic industry and ensure that at least one in every five movies shown at Russian theatres is a domestic product.  The Huffington Post says that Russia is treating its orphans like ‘human iron ore’ by imposing its adoption ban.