Ilya Milstein Before the presidential candidate and his speakers who composed the text for the Izvestia newspaper, there were a number of interesting creative tasks. Submitted to history, they should tell the readers, for which they should be grateful to the author of the article in the past. Turning to the present, to explain why he must say thanks today.

After the explosion in the Minsk metro. From the BelTA website Representatives of the special services of Belarus can be involved in the terrorist attack in the Minsk metro. According to the Russian News Service, Belarusian bloggers came to this conclusion, having studied footage from surveillance cameras at the Oktyabrskaya station and a video shot immediately after the explosion by the BelTA State Information Agency.

Boris Berezovsky. Photo by ar Entrepreneur Boris Berezovsky filed an open letter to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in which he asks the head of government to "leave on any conditions." “Volodya, while still in your power to avoid the bloody revolution,” writes Berezovsky. In his opinion, Putin “drove himself into a trap”, so he must leave and can now do this on any conditions. “Take as much as you can take with you,” Berezovsky suggests Putin.

Fragment of the poster of the Communist Party. Photo from the site www.kprf.ru "Fair Russia" and the Communist Party will send their representatives to the organizing committee of the rallies "for honest elections", the nearest of which is scheduled for February 4, Interfax reports. "Fair Russia" faced the authority of the deputy head of the Duma faction of Gennady Gudkov, and the Communists - the State Duma deputy Yevgeny Darovin.

Pedestrian crossing. Photo from the site smp-asudd.ru In the city of Pallasovka, the Volgograd Region, the police major, driving a drunk car, shot down three pedestrians, Interfax reports with reference to a source in the regional law enforcement agencies. "On the night of January 14, the deputy chief of the police department, the police major, while drunk, while on vacation, shot down three passers -by crossing the street in the wrong place on a foreign car," the agency’s source said.

Michael McFol. Photo: StanfordDaily.com First Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and the new US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFol held a meeting with representatives of the Russian opposition in Moscow, Interfax reports.

Wikipedia logo On January 18, the English-language section of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia will close for a day in protest against the Sopa (Stop Online Piracy Act piracy bill), the Air Force reports.

Barnaul, January 14, 2012 Photo report

Dmitry Medvedev. Photo: Russian look President Dmitry Medvedev dismissed the Volgograd governor Anatoly Brovko, RIA Novosti reports. This is the second resignation for the week of the head of the region, where in the parliamentary elections, United Russia showed a low result. The decree says that Brovko resigned of his own free will. In the elections to the State Duma, United Russia scored about 35 percent of the vote in the Volgograd region, showing one of the lowest results in Russia.

Vasily Yakemenko. Photo from the site www.badnews.org Mass protests after the Duma elections were the result of President Dmitry Medvedev’s refusal to go for a second term, as well as his activities as the president as a whole. The head of Rosmolodezh Vasily Yakemenko said this in the online interview. “In recent years, a lot has been talked about freedom and little has been done.

Dmitry Bykov. Photo from the Wikipedia website The voter league, the creation of which was announced the day before, will become a larger organization, from which a new political party, "expressing the interests of the middle class," will subsequently form. As Gazeta.ru reports, the writer and journalist Dmitry Bykov announced this.

Victor Baturin. Photo of Komsomolskaya Pravda The statute of limitations has terminated the criminal case on tax evasion on an especially large scale against the entrepreneur Viktor Baturin, Kommersant reports . According to Victoria Tsyplenkova, the official representative of the Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee for Moscow, the criminal prosecution of Baturina was terminated in connection with a change in criminal law.

Station "Fobos-Gront". Frame NTV One of the reasons for the converging from the orbit of the Russian spacecraft Fobos Grunct could be a destructive effect on its electronics of powerful radar radiation, in the area of ​​which the apparatus could accidentally be in the first hours after the start. According to Kommersant, a source in the rocket and space industry reported.

Alexander Skobov The session of the IV State Duma that opened on November 1, 1916 was marked by unheard of impudent performances. Even the extreme right guard Purishkevich uttered the denunciation of the speech. The leaders of the then system opposition, according to their later confessions, hoped that "the street would be silent while the Duma says." That is, they sought to release steam - on modern jargon to "merge" the brewing folk protest. It turned out the other way around.

Vladimir Bukovsky. Photo by A. Karpyuk/Grani.ru The idea of ​​negotiations with the authorities is harmful and criminal, according to the former Soviet political prisoner, writer Vladimir Bukovsky. The country rebelled against the "criminality in power", he writes in an article published on the website of "Echo of Moscow". Such a revolution can end only by the court over the criminal regime, "in the worst case - by gravity," Bukovsky is sure.