TODAY: Ukraine wants Russia to accept its European partnership; Russia cuts Belarus oil; Putin’s rights council to challenge him on ‘foreign agents’; Moscow warns West not to act prematurely on Syria; partnerships with India, Pakistan; Putin lingerie artist flees.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov says Moscow must accept that his country is moving towards a new trade relationship with the European Union: ‘[T]o build a fence to protect yourself from changes using artificial barriers is simply pointless’.  Russia insists that the detention of potash maker Uralkali’s CEO Vladislav Baumgertner in Belarus will not negatively affect agreements between Moscow and Minsk due to ‘mutual obligations’, with the Foreign Ministry commenting that ‘[t]he fact of Baumgertner’s detention and the media campaign around it doesn’t correspond to the nature of our relations as allies.’  But Russian oil firms have cut supplies to Belarus by ‘around a quarter’, indicating the escalation of a diplomatic dispute, and the global potash market is facing at least short-term difficulties over the dispute between the two major exporters.  President Vladimir Putin’s own human rights council will ask him to amend the law on non-governmental organisations on a number of points, including removing the term ‘foreign agent’ from the law, and clarifying some other terms.