The head of the Kremlin’s own human rights commission, Ella Pamfilova, on Monday urged Mr. Medvedev to take action over what she described as the “murder” of an anti-corruption activist in state custody. Mr. Magnitsky had repeatedly complained that medical treatment was being withheld as a means of pressure against him.

Airborne snowfall prevention will save the city about 300 million rubles ($10.2 million) this winter, said Andrei Tsybin, head of City Hall’s department for public works and utilities. Moscow is ready to spend about 180 million rubles to disperse clouds “in the event of very big and serious snowfall,” he said at a news conference.

Mayor Yury Luzhkov is a long-time proponent of fighting clouds by spraying liquid nitrogen, silver, or cement particles into the cloud mass, which forces precipitation to fall before it can reach the capital and spoil holidays like Victory Day and City Day.

Last month, Luzhkov proposed expanding the technology to fight the snow drifts that snarl traffic every winter.

“What if we force this snow to fall beyond Moscow? The Moscow region will have more water, bigger harvests, while we will have less snow,” he said at an award ceremony for Moscow’s best-kept yard.

He said that using the Air Force to prevent massive snowfall would be three times cheaper than using the regular system of trucks and snow-melting stations.

The stick — and here we curse — is pointing straight at us. “Now you’ll see the real Russia,” I mutter bitterly to my visiting mother. To the Russian driver, I wail: “Why? What did we do?”

“Bastards,” he replies.

My husband frowns; we are almost to the airport to pick up his mother. They always get you on the way to the airport, when you are most likely to be desperate. You are about to miss a flight, or rushing to greet a visitor. Your job, your domestic peace, your nonrefundable plane ticket hang in the balance.

For Russia’s army of crooked traffic cops, highways to the city airports are an excellent hunting ground.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made the pledge during their talks Tuesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Mr. Peres said.

Thousands gathered in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali this weekend to mark a year since Georgia launched an attack to regain the breakaway territory. Alongside remembrance of the roughly 200 Ossetians who died in the war, there were also celebrations of the territory’s “independence”, officially recognised by Russia in the aftermath of the conflict.

Residents of Tskhinvali gathered in the town’s main square late on Friday night for a concert that started at 11.35pm, roughly the time that the Georgian assault on South Ossetia began. Tragic musical compositions were interspersed with moments of silence, as the crowd was played images of last year’s war on a big screen. Alongside shots of those who died was footage of Georgia’s President, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the then US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Russia and South Ossetia have accused Washington of encouraging Georgia to launch its attack last year.