TODAY:  Putin criticizes nationalism whilst promoting stricter immigration laws; Prokhorov laments Yabloko candidate’s possible expulsion.  Teenage thief killed in police custody; inmate dies after being denied medical treatment; Medvedev skips human rights meeting for fourth time. Alleged Russian plan to sell fighter jets to Syria raises concern in US; McFaul’s bumpy landing in Moscow. Putin’s bookish side.

‘If a multiethnic society is infected by nationalism, it loses its strength and durability’: Vladimir Putin has decried the nationalist impulse in a Nezavisimaya Gazeta editorial, a translation of which can be read here, courtesy of the Huffington Post.  In the meantime, somewhat paradoxically, he also suggested that migration laws be tightened.  Putin has pledged that ‘rotation’ of politicians will be a priority if he wins the elections.  Brian Whitmore wonders if the Prime Minister risks being outmaneuvered.  Fellow presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov has said that should Yabloko’s Grigory Yavlinsky be expelled from the election campaign, it will severely undermine the credibility of the elections.  The final report of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly on the democratic process in Russia concludes that free elections will only be achieved by ‘decisive political will to do so’.