TODAY: EEC summit sees Russia rigid on barring Ukraine from Customs Union; LGBT writers plan to release ‘underground’ book; U.S. espionage accusations dismissed; tenth anniversary of imprisonment of former Yukos head; Kremlin wants Rosneft money; Tolokonnikova investigation request denied.

The Eurasian Economic Community summit was held in Minsk yesterday, with Turkey and India both expressing a desire for closer ties; many saw the summit’s main significance as its being ‘the last opportunity for [President Vladimir] Putin to convince his Ukrainian counterpart Victor Yanukovych that joining the Customs Union is a better idea than integrating with Europe’.  This report, however, quotes the President as having said that it was now ‘impossible’ for Ukraine to join.  Putin also suggested that the Customs Union be expanded, and that the Eurasian Economic Community be gradually dissolved.  Today marks the tenth anniversary of the arrest of former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky – ‘a turning point in Russia’s history’, says Boris Nemtsov.  Marking the anniversary, a former CFO at Yukos writes in The Guardian to represent ‘thousands of Yukos shareholders whose assets were stolen’.  Khodorkovsky himself has a piece in the New York Times, in which he reflects on what has and has not changed over the past ten years of his imprisonment.