TODAY: Putin and Tymoshenko sign 10-year gas deal, networks to return to working order in 36 hours; Medvedev sanctions countries selling arms to Georgia; Human Rights Watch calls for probe into death of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasiya Baburova.

Human Rights Watch is calling for a government probe into yesterday’s ‘disgraceful‘ contract killing of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasiya Baburova, and has urged the EU to put pressure on Russia ‘to bring to justice those responsible for the killings‘.  ‘The larger story here is of serial murders of Mr. Putin’s opponents, at home and abroad,‘ says the Washington Post.  20-year-old Anton Stradymov, one of the Oborona activists detained last year and a protester involved with the banned National Bolshevik Party, has been beaten to death in Moscow.  The 18-year-old leader of a nationalist group has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison by a Moscow court for staging a mock killing.