PRESS DIGEST - RUSSIA - Mar 30
MOSCOW, March 30 (Reuters) - The following are some stories in Russia's newspapers on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
VEDOMOSTI
www.vedomosti.ru
The chair of Russia's upper house of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, has urged the authorities to listen to anti-corruption protesters who demonstrated at the weekend and to talk to ordinary citizens about what is frustrating them, the newspaper says.
Russia's representative in the European Court of Human Rights, Georgy Matyushkin, has resigned for health reasons, according to the newspaper. It says it is not yet known who will succeed him.
Russia's state statistics service, Rosstat, has recalculated gross domestic product figures for 2015 after it learnt that small and medium-sized firms' contribution to the economy was initially underestimated. That means that the fall in GDP that year was less than previously thought, the newspaper says.
KOMMERSANT
www.kommersant.ru
President Vladimir Putin has dismissed several senior officials responsible for state security. The newspaper cites sources as saying that further personnel changes are expected in the top echelons of the ministry of the interior.
The newspaper reports that the deputy director of the state Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Novikov, has been placed under house arrest and accused of embezzling public funds.
KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA
www.kp.ru
The newspaper says that the European Broadcasting Union is in talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko about the possibility of lifting an entry ban on Russia's Eurovision song contest participant Yulia Samoilova. It says that Ukraine itself could be excluded from Eurovision if it continues to insist that the Russian singer cannot enter Ukraine because of a visit she made to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
($1 = 57.0241 Rub) (Reporting by Margarita Popova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
