TODAY: New unit to investigate police crimes; Siberian mayoral campaign heats up; PARNAS to register; Finland offers Khimki activist asylum. Navalny recognized by Time Magazine; Lavrov chides NATO on eve of talks; stand-up in St Petersburg; heroin.

Following a spate of accusations of police brutality and the death of a suspect in Kazan, Russia’s Investigative Committee has announced that it has created a special unit with divisions across the country, to investigate crimes allegedly committed by police.  CEC chief Vladimir Churov said has called Oleg Shein’s hunger strike ‘absolutely senseless‘.  ‘Whatever happens, Shein has demonstrated that the hinterland could, if handled wrong, provide the opposition with a much stronger and more desperate base of support than Moscow ever did’.  Brian Whitmore suggests that the mayoral election campaign of blogger Ilya Varlamov in the city of Omsk, ‘could serve as a model for future insurgent candidates’.  The criticisms noted in the OSCE’s report on the presidential elections have been described as ‘logical’ by the deputy head of the Russian delegation to the PACE.  How the Kremlin is backtracking on plans, made during the height of the winter protests, to make elections more direct.  Opposition party PARNAS has announced it will be registered thanks to the cooperation of the Republican Party of Russia.  Finland has reportedly granted asylum to a Khimki forest defender suspected of involvement in the 2010 attack on the town’s administrative office.  Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev leading from the front.