TODAY: Putin suspected of wooing Europe’s far-right, renewed accusations of major corruption; Russia will not, can not cut oil production; France indefinitely postpones warship delivery due to Ukraine crisis; Putin praises ties with Vietnam; journalists flee Russia over gay rights.

President Vladimir Putin is suspected of being involved in a ‘cash and charm offensive’ targeting far-right populist parties in Europe, a bid to strengthen the Kremlin’s political influence in the EU; this includes a Russian bank granting an $11 million loan to France’s Front National.  The party’s head, Marine Le Pen, commented: ‘These insinuations are outrageous and injurious. Does getting a loan dictate our international position?’  Soviet scholar Karen Dawisha spoke to the New York Times about Putin’s ‘thievery’ which, she says, has made him and his coterie ‘fabulously rich’.  Sergei Kolesnikov, in exile after uncovering a Putin-commissioned plan to build a ‘Black Sea palace’ with ill-gotten funds in 2010, tells RFE/RL that the President has no choice but to stay in power if he wants to avoid criminal investigation.  Following an OPEC meeting in Vienna, Russia says it will not cut oil output to boost prices; Energy Minister Alexander Novak says it simply wouldn’t be possible for Russia to change levels quickly.  Rosneft head Igor Sechin made similar comments, adding that new oil price lows are not having much of an effect in Russia.  A Gazprom oil refinery has been fined $30 million in connection with an old pollution case.  Russia is apparently heating up 2.5 times faster than the rest of the world.