TODAY: New accusations against Navalny’s credentials, Lebedev drops him from Aeroflot board nominees; Kerry comment amuses media; congressman says visa denial was ‘retaliation’; Pekhtin whistleblower Zayakin; Putin wants military upgrade; brain drain myth; Litvinenko’s body to be examined in secret.

The Investigative Committee says that anti-corruption activist and opposition leader Alexei Navalny is not a real lawyer, and fraudulently obtained his legal credentials (Navalny promptly denied the accusation).  Alexander Lebedev dropped Navalny from a list of nominees for the board of Aeroflot, recommending instead his own 15-month-old son.  Following Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s meeting with new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian media apparently ‘savoured’ a declaration by the latter about Americans having ‘the right to be stupid’ – seemingly an attempt by Kerry to explain the mechanics of free speech.  Chris Smith, a prominent U.S. congressman, says that Moscow’s decision to deny him a visa to visit Russia is a retaliative measure for America’s Magnitsky List.  A lawyer for the Shatto family says that their adopted Russian son Max had self-inflicted injuries and an emotional disturbance before his death. The Moscow Times writes about Andrei Zayakin, who originally uncovered Vladimir Pekhtin’s undeclared $2 million home in Miami, and discusses the fallout from the Pekhtin affair. ‘I believe that 100,000 activists sitting in front of their PCs will be able to replace the regime faster than 100,000 activists waving banners on the streets,’ Zayakin is quoted as saying.