No, Russia's former prime minister wasn't attacked with 9,000 eggs Meanwhile in Russia, on Thursday, February 11, 2016

• Contrary to earlier reports, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov is not the Egg Man, though some ultra-nationalists (including one dressed as a clown) did get up in his grill.
  
• Anti-Corruption activist Alexey Navalny is suing President Putin and demanding that Moscow's mayor prove the legality of demolishing roughly 100 small businesses throughout the city.
• The Kremlin supports the demolition of Moscow's “sleazy” makeshift mini-malls, but the guys who owned those shops aren't going gentle into that good night.
• President Putin has fired a top-ranking cop in Chechnya.
• Those hospitals in Aleppo that the Pentagon says Russia bombed? Moscow says the US did it.

No, Russia's former prime minister wasn't attacked with 9,000 eggs

There's confusion today about another scuffle involving former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who heads the opposition party Parnas. Earlier this week, a group of Chechen men attacked Kasyanov in a restaurant, throwing a cake at his head. Today, the news agency TASS reported that Kasyanov was hit with “several dozen eggs.” 

According to figures from Parnas, activists from the ultra-nationalist People's Liberation Movement picketed Kasyanov's press conference today, but he wasn't hit with any eggs. Video from the scene doesn't show him encountering any eggs, chickens, or dairy farmers, though one man dressed as a clown did try to get up close. (Security guards said nope.) 

There were no eggs in the latest Kasyanov assault, but Alexey Navalny's got huevos to spare

Russia's anti-corruption crusader, Alexey Navalny, is in the news again today. His group, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, is suing President Putin for failing to report a conflict of interest when he allocated money from the National Wealth Fund to a company called “Sibur,” whose shareholders include Kirill Shamalov, who is reportedly the husband of Katerina Tikhonova, allegedly Putin's younger daughter. (Putin has refused to confirm or deny this information.) According to Navalny, Putin violated laws against corruption when he sent government funding to Shamalov's business. When Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesman, was asked if Putin knows about the lawsuit, Peskov answered only, “No.”

Navalny is also calling on Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to publish documents proving that the city got advance confirmation from law enforcement that roughly a hundred small businesses recently demolished outside metro stations were, in fact, constructed illegally. Sobyanin stated publicly that the businesses now in ruins were protected only by “papers obtained by clearly fraudulent means.” Navalny says police documentation must exist confirming this fraud, if it's what justified Sobyanin's decision to let loose the bulldozers. (The demolitions took place at multiple metro stations, including Kropotkinskaya, Chistye Prudy, Sokol, Taganskaya, and others.)

Moscow's ‘sleazebags’ want compensation

The Kremlin has already signaled its support for Sobyanin's decision to move against the “mini-malls” built around Moscow's metro stations. Sergei Ivanov, Putin's chief of staff, told reporters that the businesses were constructed with only temporary permits, saying they were an affront to good architecture and “aesthetics.” He also called the now-destroyed stores “sleazy.” Ivanov suggests building nothing in their place, saying open spaces will better suit the city. 

According to Alexey Petropolsky, a member of an organization representing small- and medium-sized business-owners, nearly all the recently expropriated shop owners are planning to sue the city for compensation. Petropolsky says the lawsuits will demand $10,000 for every square meter of demolished property.

Putin fires a top-ranking police official in Chechnya

Vladimir Putin fired the head of the Investigative Committee's Chechen branch today. The executive order didn't specify a reason. Sergei Devyatov had served in the role since 2014. 

In April 2015, Russia's Federal Investigative Committee began a probe of Chechen investigators for opening a criminal case against Stavropol law enforcement, following a police raid in Grozny that set off a jurisdictional feud between Chechen and federal authorities that nearly led to bloodshed between police. The Investigative Committee later dropped the probe.

Russia blames the US for bombing hospitals in Aleppo

Russia's Defense Ministry has accused the US military of bombing the Syrian city of Aleppo and blaming it on Moscow. Igor Konashenkov, the Defense Ministry's spokesman, says two American attack planes took off from air bases in Turkey and bombed targets in Aleppo on Wednesday, February 10. Afterwards, he says, the Pentagon attributed this attack (which hit two hospitals) to Russian planes.

“Russian aircraft weren't operating over Aleppo yesterday,” Konashenkov claimed. “Our closest target was 20 kilometers [12.5 miles] from the city. The only planes active over the city yesterday were the aircraft of the so-called anti-ISIS coalition: warplanes and attack drones.”