TODAY: For Human Rights employees violently evicted; Pussy Riot tour to spread message, oppose homosexual propaganda ban; Russia wants St. Petersburg UNESCO status revoked; Nabiullina takes helm at Central Bank, warns against talk of rouble devaluation; Borodin interview; Snowden’s flight to Moscow causes diplomatic consternation; Merkel rows with Putin over art thefts.

Lev Ponomaryov, the 71-year-old head of the organisation For Human Rights, was left bruised and scratched after the group was forcibly evicted from its offices over the weekend. ‘FSB operatives who were in charge of the raid were beating up people before my own eyes,’ commented Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin, who witnessed the event.  Ponomaryov ‘said he had never received official notice that his lease was to be terminated and had expected Moscow to extend it, as in previous years’, and described the eviction as part of a ‘purge’.  Human Rights Watch is calling on the Duma to listen to ‘a wave of international criticism’ and reject its draft law to impose a nationwide ban on ‘homosexual propaganda’.  Two anonymous members of Pussy Riot are in London to promote the group’s message, saying that they have been ‘pleasantly surprised at how accessible British politicians were’.  They tied their mission to the homosexual propaganda law, explaining that ‘these laws are connected to Pussy Riot because they are aimed at the issues we stand for: LGBT rights and gender equality.’  Russia has submitted a proposal to UNESCO to scale back the area of St. Petersburg that is protected under World Heritage status, part of what conservationists are calling ‘an aggressive campaign to seize prized land in some of the city’s most prestigious outlying areas’.