At the end of last week, Vladimit Putin held in Bocharov Ruchej informal meetings with Russian journalists – both with broadcasters and print journalists. The meeting was attended, among others, by Margarita Simonian, chief editor of Russia Tuday TV, and by TV journalists Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolay Svanidze, and Alexey Pivovarov.

Alexey Simonov, acting president of the Educated Media Foundation, and president of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, told Vera Chelischeva of Novaya Gazeta, that journalists, who attended the meeting with Vladimir Putin in Bocharov Ruchej, asked him a question about the fate of Manana Aslamazyan and her Educated Media Foundation. Once again President made it clear that the situation is "under control".

"This is not the first meeting of a sufficiently large number of journalists and TV managers with the President that has not been covered in any media, - Simonov says. – It would be possible, of course, to make it so that certain things are not made public, but when the management and leading journalists meet the President, it is strange that there are no reports of any kind about this in the media represented by these journalists".

"As I was informed by the people attending this meeting, the President was asked about his attitude towards Manana Aslamazyan's case. As far as I know, the question was asked by the people who signed the letter in Aslamazyan's defense. I cannot tell whether this question was agreed upon in advance or improvised, but I think that the question was approved before they started their conversation. Putin, as he loves to say when answering questions, was "totally in the know". He said: "Yes, I am well familiar with this case. But it is not worth a pin. She (M. Aslamazyan – editor's note) can return to her home country without any worry. Of course, no one will release her from administrative responsibility for her mistake, but one should not confuse a mistake with a crime". He also added: "While I am President, she absolutely does not need to worry"."

Simonov says that after the conversation between journalists and the President was over, Putin's press secretary, Mr. Gromov addressed several interested journalists with one request: when Manana Aslamazyan is going to come to Russia, let him know in advance. "Then measures will be taken at the Presidential Staff so that it would not happen that Aslamazyan is "nicked" right on the border".

It was at the end of last week when President Putin stated that the head of Educated Media can come back home without worry, and today it became known that Investigation Committee of the Interior Ministry denied Aslamazyan, who is charged, to remind, with smuggling currency, her request to send her case to court and hear it in absentia. This was reported to Novaya Gazeta by Aslamazyan's lawyer Viktov Parshutkin.

"Today the Investigation Committee denied Manana Aslamazyan's motion for sending her case to court and hearing it in absentia, that is, in her absence, - Parshutkin said. – The Investigation Committee demands her return to Russia, and only after that the issue of sending her case to court will be decided".

Commenting the investigators' decision and the recent statement made by the President, Parshutkin said: "On the one hand, the Investigation Committee says: give us Manana Aslamazyan, and basta! We will not drop criminal charges. And this happens at the time when the President says that Aslamazyan's case is not worth a farthing! In the President's opinion, it has no elements of criminal offense. That leads to a question: either the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, or it is the Investigation Committee that disobeys the political leadership, and specifically, the President. Or the President is just dissembling."

To remind, currently Manana Aslamazyan stays out of Russia. Investigation of criminal charges has been completed, and the defense is to examine collected evidence shortly.

Early this year, head of the Educated Media Foundation (legal successor of Internews) was charged with smuggling. According to investigators, early this year Aslamazyan on her way back to Russia from Paris, passing customs control, failed to declare properly 9.55 thousand euros and 5.13 thousand rubles. A few month later seizures of documents took place at the Foundation, and then the organization announced suspension of its work.