TODAY: Ethnic tensions linger in Moscow; nationalism and Putinism interwoven? Belarus’ Lukaschenko wins fourth term, protesters claiming election fraud attempt to storm government building; doctor claims Putin hospital visit staged; Nemtsov to sue.  Russia voices concerns over tense Koreas situation; EU and Russia relations lacklustre?  Polish PM decries Russian plane crash report; Latvia rapprochement

‘The Russian leadership, under Vladimir Putin, has long flirted with chauvinism and xenophobia. Putinism itself is built around soft nationalism’.  According to the Moscow Times, around 2000 people were detained in the capital on Saturday, after a sanctioned nationalist demonstration seemed to spell disturbances.  The Guardian examines the links between ultra-nationalism and football.  Dr. Andreas Umland has an in-depth analysis of how nationalism has been sown into the fabric of the power vertical.  Belarus’ Alexander Lukaschenko apparently worked hard to create a veneer of pluralism prior to Sunday’s presidential elections (‘it looks like a celebration of democracy’, said one opposition politician).  Needless to say, the strong man won a fourth term with almost 80% of the vote.  When as many as 40,000 protesters tried to storm the government building in an protest against vote-rigging, in what the New York Times has called ‘one of the most significant challenges yet to his iron-fisted, 16-year rule’, they were met with severe police repression.