TODAY: Family of Pussy Riot member threatened as third woman detained; Patriarch Kirill’s p influence under scrutiny; the path from protest to politics; registration of parties to become simpler.  Police brutality in Siberia and elsewhere; brother of Polish president sees assassination plot in Smolensk crash death; the perils of Russian air travel; the President’s cat

The young son and parents of an alleged member of punk rock group Pussy Riot have received death threats, says a lawyer for one of the participants in the band.  Moscow City Court has ruled that the pre-trial detention of a third suspected member of the group, Yekaterina Samutsevich, is legal.  Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky discusses the extent of Patriarch Kirill’s political power and its implications for the detained members of the band – namely that they are unlikely to find the courts sympathetic.  Yulia Latynina has written a particularly biting op-ed on a recent example of Kirill’s sway over the judiciary.  The Moscow Times reports on an unorthodox method of ensuring paratroopers remain devout.  Opposition journalist Oleg Kashin argues that ‘[n]othing will threaten Putin’s regime until the millions of Russians who make their living in the kickback economy recognize that the costs outweigh the benefits’ in an editorial for Bloomberg.  The Washington Post examines how members of the protest movement are using local council positions as a vehicle for change.  The State Duma has approved legislation designed to simplify the registration of political parties, apparently in response to the protest movement.