TODAY: Khodorkovsky verdict rigged says judge’s assistant; Guardian seeks clarification on Harding’s status; defamation suit against Putin thrown out of court. Russia-Britain relations under scrutiny as Lavrov prepares to meet Hague; Kremlin asserts Kuril sovereignty with missile plan; Wikileaks offers insight into NATO’s view of Russian army; Dubrovka hostage crisis inquiry to be reopened; walking on Mars (without leaving Moscow); Chernobyl on film

Today’s press is awash with claims from an aide to the judge who convicted oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky that Viktor Danilkin did not write the verdict himself and was under the ‘total control’ of senior-level officials during the two-year trial.  Whistleblower Natalia Vasilyev reportedly claims that Danilkin’s original draft of the verdict was rejected and he was forced to read one written by senior officials at the Moscow City Court.  Judge Danilkin refuted the claims as ‘slander’.  The Moscow City Court has stated it has no plans to fire Vasilyeva; she has apparently resigned.  RFE/RL looks back at the fate of other whistleblowers who have taken on the Kremlin.  ‘It’s a death stare that says: you, my friend, will soon be sleeping with the carp at the bottom of the Volga (or failing that, a gulag six time zones away from Moscow’): the Guardian reviews the new Cyril Tuschi documentary about Khodorkovsky.  The Guardian is concerned that the situation of its Moscow correspondent Luke Harding remains uncertain and has urged the Kremlin for clarification over the duration of Harding’s visa, which, the newspaper suggests, could expire in a fortnight’s time.  A Moscow court has thrown out the defamation suit brought by opposition activists Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and Vladimir Milov against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, without stating why.