Text of report in English by Moscow Times website on 13 March [Article by Georgiy Bovt, political analyst and broadcaster, headlined "No internet thaw under Dima"] The Russian blogosphere showed a lot of activity during the presidential election campaign.

A televised presidential debate marked the beginning of the campaign season in Russia, but the presumptive next president did not attend, a report said.

LEADING ARTICLE RUSSIA Early results in yesterday's election for the lower house of the Russian parliament, the Duma, had something for almost everyone inside the spectrum of opinion tolerated by the Kremlin - and almost nothing for anyone else.

Two parties took part in the election debate broadcast by Russian Centre TV at 1445 gmt on 23 November 2007. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) was represented by its leader Vladimir Zhirinovskiy and the Communist Party of Russia, by Nikolay Khoritonov.

MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax) - Moscow has banned Ukrainian citizen Petro Poroshenko from entering Russia in response to Ukraine's "inappropriate practice" of prohibiting entry to Ukraine for some Russian citizens, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.