TODAY: Putin names mountain after KGB; crisis sparks worries of unrest; 90th anniversary of Solzhenitsyn’s birth; Poland modernizing its military; Russian troops leave Perevi.

An imagined scenario of what might happen as a result of the financial crisis, including protests and violence, has been branded an incite to extremism by Russian authorities – are the Kremlin’s fears legitimate?  This UK columnist thinks so: ‘The crisis threatens to reveal the glaring failure of Putin’s reign to take advantage of strong economic growth and relative stability to push forward with modernisation and reform.‘  An ‘ultraright‘ artist was booed after winning Russia’s top contemporary art award, the Kandinsky Prize, and this BBC report suggests that Russia’s nationalist groups could increase as a result of the financial crisis.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has named a peak in the Caucasus Mountains in honor of Russian spies.  The previously unnamed mountain has been named ‘the Peak of Russian Counterintelligence Agents‘.