TODAY: Kremlin vows response to US Magnitsky sanctions; Rogozin blasts Republicans; Moscow conservation activists report assault by security officers; cop-on-cop corruption; Lebedev denied parole.  Russia denies confidential info leak on internet; how search engine optimisation is giving nuclear city Chelyabinsk a clean bill of health.  Putin will return to presidency say some senior officials; Medvedev promotes digital voting.  Forest fires; the last Tsar.

The Russian government has stated that it will ‘not leave unanswered the unfriendly steps’ taken by the United States in approving sanctions against those implicated in the death of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.  The First Deputy of Russia’s International Affairs Committee has argued that Russia should limit its reaction to the U.S. State Department black list to strong rhetoric.  What prompted NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin to brand two Republican senators ‘monsters of the Cold War‘? Find out here. Five activists from the Moscow Defender movement who attempted to prevent the demolition of a historical mansion claim to have been beaten by private security guards, RFE/RL reports.  A traffic police officer has reportedly broken the arm of a fellow police officer, whom he caught speeding, after failing to extract a bribe from him.  The business partner of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, has been denied parole, meaning he will remain in prison until the end of his sentence in 2016.  The court apparently rejected the plea on the grounds of two breaches of prison rules, one of which was the loss of a pair of trousers. Khodorkovsky has pledged he will go ahead with his request for parole despite Lebedev’s failure.