TODAY: Kudrin warns on financing Ukraine; loan to Hungary will fund nuclear plants; critics attack Aksana Panova ban; U.S. journalist’s Russia ban is payback, sources say; Politkovskaya trial resumes with new jury; Pussy Riot visit their former jail; Sobyanin congratulated for fairness in last election; Zhirinovsky’s relationship advice.

Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has expressed reservations about the safety of extending loans to Ukraine, warning that its debt securities, in which Russia plans to invest, are unreliable assets.  In keeping with its plan to increase profits from long-term nuclear energy projects, Moscow will lend Hungary €10 billion to finance two Russian-built nuclear power plants.  ‘This is a marriage of convenience that’s working better and better and which both sides are enjoying more and more,’ said a Hungarian government source.  The ban on media work recently imposed on journalist Aksana Panova as part of her sentence for extortion charges is drawing ire from critics, who are accusing the authorities of trying to silence independent reporters and critical voices.  The five-year-barring of U.S. journalist David Satter from entering Russia, announced yesterday, is also fueling concerns about freedom of speech.  Satter himself called it ‘an ominous precedent for all journalists’, and the U.S. State Department said the move ‘undermines free debate and discussion’.  The Times notes that Satter’s last book blamed Russia’s own security services for a triple terrorist bombing in 1999. ‘Translation: payback.’  A new jury has been appointed in the trial against the suspected killers of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, which resumes today.