TODAY: Upcoming Putin Q&A pulls half a million questions; Putin calls for urgent economic stimulus; opposition trials this week; Peskov laments lack of opposition; Russia to support nuclear Egypt; Gazprom to split? Boston bombers Russia links. 

President Vladimir Putin will hold his annual live Q&A session later this week, and organisers have apparently already received almost half a million questions, largely of a social services nature, as well as regarding ‘U.S. visa restrictions in the wake of the Boston bombings’, according to the show’s website.  Putin says the economy is showing ‘alarming signals’ of slowing, and called for urgent action to stimulate growth, which is at its weakest pace since 2009.  This Moscow Times piece discusses Russia as an ‘unnecessarily poor’ country.  The trial of rights activist Konstantin Lebedev began in Moscow yesterday, with expectations that he will be sentenced later this week on charges of organising violence at the Bolotnaya Square protest last May, to which he pleads guilty.  Masha Gessen provides an overview of a number of next week’s significant pending court cases against opposition activists, including Alexei Navalny and Pussy Riot, noting that the courts are now ‘virtually the only point of contact between an individual or organization and the state’.  Thanks to a ruling by the Constitutional Court, Russian voters will be allowed to appeal election results.  The Atlantic looks at the case against Navalny as directly relating to his desire to work in public office, and notes that either a prison or probationary sentence would bar him from this goal.  Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, says he hopes that Russia will soon develop a ‘constructive opposition’.  He also slammed foreign media for using ’10-year-old stereotypes’ when reporting on Russia.