TODAY: Disillusion in Siberia; Strasbourg to discuss Khodorkovsky case; new film out on the Yukos trial; Viktor Bout trial to unlock Russian secrets?  Lyudmila Alexeyeva asserts the need for protest to be legal; two activists jailed; Medvedev gifts orphanage; Putin wows in woolly jumper

‘Things were much better in the Soviet Union’: the Washington Post has a special report on post-Soviet decline in the icy climes of Northern Siberia.  Ria-Novosti reports that the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights will discuss the verdict on Russian ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev.  Kathy Lally looks at ‘Vlast‘, a new film by Cathryn Collins, which apparently uses the Khodorkovsky trial as a vehicle for the story of Russia’s trajectory from communist authoritarianism to capitalist pillaging in the 90s.