TODAY: Dvorkovich indicates discomfort with NGO law; Kremlin opponents travel to U.S. Senate to decry state measures; Putin explains ties to Russia Today; Prokhorov will not run for Moscow mayor; Putin says no room to increase state spending, outlines plans to overhaul IMF, World Cup to cost $20bn; Navalny forced to return to Kirov; Putin declares Schneerson debate over. 

Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said he would welcome changes to the ‘foreign agent’ bill passed in the Duma last year, and hinted that it may be ‘corrected’.  A group of Kremlin opponents from Russia traveled to the U.S. Senate yesterday to discuss a lessening of freedoms under Putin’s rule, with a particular focus on NGOs that rely on foreign funding and lie ‘at the interface between civil society and politics’.  The European Parliament also criticised the NGO law, as well as the new move to ban ‘homosexual propaganda’.  Kremlin opponents anticipate that the new anti-blasphemy law will be applied selectively.  President Vladimir Putin admitted earlier this week that ‘independent’ news channel Russia Today ‘is funded by the government, so it cannot help but reflect the Russian government’s official position on the events in our country and in the rest of the world’.  Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov says he will not be running in the Moscow mayoral elections this September, and that his party would not participate in ‘prolonging the current mayor’s license’ (referring to acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s move of stepping down early and forcing snap elections that will set him up to be re-elected).  Prokhorov blamed ‘objective circumstances and the authorities’ tricks’.  He said that he would focus instead on next year’s regional parliament elections.