Vladimir Putin he is not welcome at Olympics 2012

Earlier this week, pro-Kremlin activists in the city of Ekaterinburg were caught handing out tens of thousands of copies of a propaganda newspaper carrying a photo of Mr Navalny that had been Photoshopped to suggest he was being illicitly funded by a controversial anti-Kremlin oligarch.
The trick, which was swiftly unmasked on the internet, comes as Mr Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, is trying to ramp up his popularity ahead of a March 4 presidential vote which he is widely expected to win.
But according to Evgeny Roizman, one of Ekaterinburg's best-known opposition politicians, the stunt smacked of Kremlin desperation.
"United Russia (Mr Putin's party) won far fewer votes here during the parliamentary elections than elsewhere in Russia," he told the liberal Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
"On March 4 Putin's result could be even lower. That is why they crossed the line making this fuss. They do not understand that such propaganda aimed at the ignorant will not win him any more votes. People here are much brighter and exacting and such tricks do not work on us.


Putin will use the London Olympics and the winter Olympics in two years' time as self-promotion events."


Parliament will also hear calls for the UK to impose visa bans on Russian officials implicated in the death of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison two years ago.


He had accused Russia's interior ministry of stealing £200m in taxes that Hermitage Capital, an asset management company, had paid the Russian government the previous year.


The US and several European countries have banned the 60 senior Russian officials involved in the alleged scam, but the UK government has refused to do so, apparently afraid that the move would inflame political tensions with Moscow and have a negative effect on British companies doing business in Russia.


It is unclear whether Putin will attend the London Games. He makes little secret of his contempt for Britain, which harbours several prominent Russian political exiles including the oligarch Boris Berezovsky. The UK's judicial refusal to extradite Berezovsky remains a source of Anglo-Russian discord.


MacShane said his move was solely directed at Putin and not at Russia's Olympic sportsmen and women, who would be warmly welcomed.


"There is no anti-Russian feeling in London," he insisted. Instead, he said his target was Russian bureaucrats who enjoyed visiting the UK but denied Russian citizens basic rights at home.


The Home Office has refused to say whether a visa ban for those on the "Magnitsky list" is in place, despite questions from the former Europe minister Chris Bryant, who also supports the move against Putin.


David Cameron and William Hague were willing to "loudly criticise Gaddafi or Bashar al-Assad" but were "mute" when it came to Russia or China, MacShane said, adding: "The time has come to stand up for British values rather than to perch on our knees to Mr Putin in the hope that Russia will co-operate on Syria or Iran.


"There is a dreadful double standard here. Some human rights violations are more equal than others. When Cameron and Hague went to Russia last year, they didn't publicly raise the Magnitsky case. It was shameful.