TODAY: No holidays for Sochi organisers; MegaFon’s Olympic monopoly; at Vilnius summit, EU rejects Ukraine’s call for trilateral talks with Russia; Serdyukov charged with negligence; final Greenpeace detainee released; Gazprombank loan for Venezuela; television and tolerance.

There will be no holidays for the organisers of this winter’s Sochi Olympics, said President Vladimir Putin, indicating that the final preparations are running to meet the deadline. ‘For you, the New Year will be on March 18.’  MegaFon’s plan to disallow automatic roaming for other telecoms customers during the Sochi Games will likely compel visitors to buy MegaFon SIM cards, and may be in violation of anti-monopoly measures.  An Olympic torchbearer caught fire in Abakan yesterday.  Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych failed to save his country’s planned deal with the European Union at a summit in Vilnius yesterday. Yanukovych apparently wanted Ukraine’s economic problems to be solved jointly by Russia and the EU, but summit leaders rejected his suggestion of trilateral talks.  Anne Applebaum says the deal that Yanukovych didn’t sign was, in any case, ‘remarkably boring’.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe would keep the door open in hopes of an agreement in the future.  The State Duma is pushing to have Russian recognised as an official EU language.