TODAY: Medvedev interview focuses on security and sport, dodges Khodorkovsky question; soldiers sent into regions badly hit by economic crisis; Orthodox media.

President Dmitry Medvedev’s Christmas Eve message to Russians focused on Russian security and the necessity of using force to protect it, defending his relationship with Vladimir Putin as ‘right, and rather effective‘, and praise of Russian sport.  One UK report says his comments were ‘interspersed with highly nationalistic video footage‘.  He also dodged a question on a potential pardon for jailed former Yukos executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky, saying all decisions would be left to the courts.  ‘No one should interfere, neither a village elder nor the president of the country.‘  A Moscow court today found Alexei Kurtsin, a former manager of Yukos, guilty of abuse of office and embezzlement.  The Kremlin’s youth organization, Nashi, has awarded Georgia, Ukraine and the US the honor of holding the most antagonistic relations with Russia in 2008, and intends to deliver gifts to their respective embassies.