TODAY: Udaltsov birthday party ends in police scuffle; posthumous Magnitsky trial begins today; Pakhomov investigation premature; crime against journalists; meteor clean-up, Zhirinovsky blames U.S.; Kerry and Lavrov discuss meeting; Moscow Exchange sells its own shares; investor bear hug.

A birthday party outside the Moscow apartment of opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov, currently under house arrest on suspicion of plotting to incite riots, ended in clashes with police and seventeen detentions.  The Interior Ministry says that the embezzlement of over $33 million of state funds has been uncovered at RusHydro.  The controversial posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky begins today, and is thought to be ‘the first time in Soviet or Russian history that a defendant has been tried posthumously.’  Investigators are saying that it is too soon to discuss the murder of abducted Lipetsk lawmaker Mikhail Pakhomov, given that his body has not been found.  Russia holds the world’s ninth-worst record for combating crime against journalists, according to a new report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.