The shrill cries of anti-Putinism dominate our newspapers and airwaves. Anders Aslund, the Swedish economist calls for Russia to be expelled from the G8 economic grouping; The Guardian joins the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Independent and others in painting a bleak picture of Putinism while hailing the middle class protestors who have taken to the streets and increasingly are battling with security forces as they seek to ‘occupy’ parts of the Russian capital.

A hard dose of facts would serve to disabuse our media colleagues of their trendy enthusiasms. Putin won the presidency of Russia. If you strip away the myriad claims of vote rigging, ballot stuffing etc he would still have won 50% of the vote. If you discount the votes of conscripts, convicts and the inhabitants of mental health institutions he would still have the biggest vote of all the presidential candidates and would have won in a second round.

The vocal protestors which mustered up to 100,000 people at their peak are still a tiny proportion of Russia’s 142 million population.

As a leading foreign equity strategist told me the other day, “Exxon, Nestle and Pepsi don’t rely on the newspapers to guide their investment decisions on Russia. They have their own massive offices and networks in Russia that far outnumber the news bureau of the leading western media.”

The OWC – Foreign Trade Publishing House is publishing the German version of the AEB-publication ‘How to Invest in Russia’ at the end of June. The guide ‘AEB- Investieren in Russland 2012’ has a circulation of 10,000 copies and reaches subscribers of the monthly German business magazine ‘OST WEST-CONTACT’ and the weekly newsletter ‘RUSSLAND aktuell’. 2,000 copies will be distributed additionally on business conferences in Germany about Russia.

Alfa-Bank announces the appointment of Alexey Marey as Chief Executive Officer and Member of its Board of Directors. Rushan Khvesyuk who has been holding senior executive posts at Alfa-Bank for many years, is appointed Chef Executive Officer of Alfa Banking Group. Mr. Khvesyuk will continue to be involved in strategic management of the Bank as a member of the Board of Directors. These changes, of which the market participants along with the Bank’s staff were made aware early  the last autumn, are being brought about according to the plan. The appointment of a new Chief Executive is intended to spur the business development of the Bank and to further strengthen its position as the largest privately-owned bank in Russia, which showed a record profit for the year 2011.

On the back of the strong domestic macro backdrop, we have favored the domestic banking, real estate, consumer goods and TMT sectors since the beginning of the year. Overall, this stance was quite profitable, and many sectors are still maintaining YTD outperformance. While the domestic theme has not in any manner been negatively impacted, the stronger ruble - which has been in place since early in the year - is no longer an active factor. The ruble has weakened over the past two weeks amid a variety of developments - global risk appetite is waning, the oil price is down, Euroclear developments seem startling, inflation may jump in the next few months, the opposition has returned to the streets of Moscow and Russia's WTO entry approaches. The change in the ruble's dynamics suggests we take another look at the best investment opportunities in Russia.

The Russia House, the leading London-based facilitator for business travel to Russia has announced that “with immediate effect the Consulate of the Russian federation will only be issuing visas on a 6 working day basis - there will be no next day service until further notice”.

The facilitator said they will keep clients updated on further changes.

Emirates airline has appointed Andrey Efremov as Director of Sales in Moscow. His responsibilities will include development and implementation of sales strategies of Emirates in Moscow, planning and implementation of marketing objectives, as well as interaction with key partners of the airline.

Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi’s ambitious plans to sell over 40 of its Superjet 100 intermediate passenger jets to Indonesian carriers were put on hold on Thursday as a Sukhoi Superjet 950 on a demonstration flight piled into a near vertical cliff late Wednesday afternoon south of Jakarta with little hope of survivors among the 45 people on board.

The inauguration ceremony took place in the Grand Kremlin Palace.The ceremony opened with the Russian State Flag, Presidential Standard, Russian Constitution, and the Symbol of Presidential Office being brought into the Grand Kremlin Palace’s St Andrew Hall.

On May 3rd Londoners vote for who shall be Mayor of the city. Ken Livingstone the Labour party candidate, attempting a comeback, recognises that western economies are going to be locked into slow growth for the rest of this decade, whereas, he says, China, India Brazil are growing strongly. “We've got to do business somewhere and what the mayor's job is, is to say the workforce in London is the only workforce in Europe that matches American levels of productivity, come and invest in London."

“Police fired teargas and water cannon Saturday as thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital to demand sweeping electoral reforms.

“The otherwise peaceful rally was disrupted when hundreds of protesters pushed aside barricades and were met with teargas and chemical-laced water.

“Police spokesman said at least 222 people were arrested but expected the figure to rise.