July 23, 2009 By Citizen M

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – July 23, 2009

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TODAY: Biden in Georgia expresses support for freedom and territorial integrity; Russia-NATO Council meeting pragmatic.  Body of missing Russian activist  Andrei Kulagin found, second murder in a week.  Nobel laureates plead for justice for Estemirova; Russia says no to UN probe into her death.

Mikheil Saakashvili wasted no words in condemning Russia in his meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden.  Biden pledged his support by sending out an ‘unequivocal, clear message to all who will listen and some who don’t want to’, in an apparent tacit reference to the Kremlin.  ‘We refuse to recognise that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are not part of Georgia’, Biden told the BBC.  Resurrected discussions of the expulsion of two Russian diplomats from Georgia on spying charges have been criticized by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Karasi as a spy-themed show of strength for the benefit of Saakashvili’s American guest.  Tbilisi has accused Moscow of trying to undermine stability in the region after a visit by Russia’s top security officials to South Ossetia.