TODAY: Medvedev suggests arms imports, promises liberalized elections; investigation opens into the company that leased the Bulgaria as memorial held; Georgian spy charges are ‘hysteria’; Lavrov at the White House; Zyuganov lambasts wasted Duma; Moscow to double in size? Sex museums, wildfires.

President Dmitry Medvedev is urging the military to buy its weapons abroad rather than buying ‘junk’ from domestic producers, highlighting concerns over ‘Russia’s decrepit arms industry’.  He has also promised to liberalize election laws and the political system, and reiterated his commitment to decentralization.  A criminal negligence investigation has been opened into the tourist ship Bulgaria, which sank on the Volga River earlier this week; the head of the company that leased the boat has been detained, amid reports that the boat was not in fit condition.  Prosecutors say that the boat did not have a license to carry passengers, and Reuters suggests that the government will seek to shift blame away from the state. ‘The degree of irresponsibility at all levels of authority and among citizens has reached the level of being a threat to Russian national security every day.’  The death toll is currently at 100, with 29 passengers still unaccounted for.  The BBC has footage of the memorial service held yesterday in the port of Kazan.