Dmitry Astakhov / Ria Novosti via Reuters

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stands in his office in Moscow on April 9, 2013, before an interview with a Russian television channel.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin continued a European trip marked by protest, his successor as Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was left looking rather wistful at his office back in Moscow Tuesday.

Since Putin and Medvedev swapped jobs in May last year, the latter has found himself out of the limelight and has even found time to indulge his passion for photography.

NPR's Moscow correspondent Corey Flintoff reported earlier this month that Medvedev appears increasingly isolated from the center of power and may have been the target of a campaign to wreck his reputation.

Putin, who was confronted by topless protesters in Germany on Monday, faced further demonstrations in the Netherlands, where 1,000 gay rights activists waved pink and orange balloons and blasted out dance music to condemn Russia's treatment of homosexuals. 

AFP - Getty Images, RIA Novosti via AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin had a busy day Monday: (clockwise from top left) Sitting in a Volkswagen XL 1 Hybrid car in Hanover, Germany; laughing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel; arriving at Schiphol airport in The Netherlands; drinking a toast with Dutch Queen Beatrix at the Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam.

Robin Utrecht / EPA

Demonstrators participate in a protest near the National Maritime Museum, where Putin was having dinner, in Amsterdam on April 8, 2013. The protesters were denouncing a so-called 'homosexual propaganda ban' in Russia which was enacted in January.

Previously on PhotoBlog: On holiday with Putin and Medvedev

Jochen Luebke / EPA

An eye-opening experience for Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) as he is confronted by a topless demonstrator during a tour of the Hanover Fair in Hanover, Germany, on April 8, 2013. He was accompanied by German Chancellor Angela Merkel (center right) and Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn (extreme right).

Russian President Vladimir Putin laughed off a protest against him by topless women in Germany on Monday, joking that he liked what he had seen while sharply rebuffing German criticism of his human rights record.

Three members of the women's rights group Femen, which has staged protests against Russia's detention of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot around Europe, disrupted his visit to a trade fair in the German city of Hanover focusing on Russian business.

They stripped to the waist and shouted slogans calling the Russian leader a "dictator" before being covered up and bundled away by security men.

Julian Schultenschulte / EPA

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchange glances after the incident involving topless demonstrators.

Jochen Luebke / EPA

Security staff stop another topless demonstrator at the Volkswagen stand at the Hanover Fair.

"Regarding this performance, I liked it," grinned Putin at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, adding that it had helped to promote the trade fair though he suggested that the security men could have been "gentler".

"I did not catch what they were shouting, I did not even see if they were blondes, brunettes or chestnut-haired ... I don't see anything terrible in (the protest), though I think ... it is better to be dressed if one wants to discuss political matters." Read the full story.

Jochen Luebke / AFP - Getty Images

A demonstrator is held by security staff.

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This story was originally published on Mon Apr 8, 2013 9:12 AM EDT

NBC News

Sonia greets her new parents, Kristina and Rich England.

BRYANSK, Russia -- Kristi and Rich England of Marshall, Minn., shook with nerves and joy on their fourth and last trip to an orphanage in Bryansk, in rural Russia.  

They were finally taking Sonia, a partially blind and hyperactive 3-year-old, home with them. The tearful Feb. 12 meeting, punctuated by Sonia’s screams of “mama” and “dada,” was all the more emotional because the Englands knew that they were the last lucky couple to leave Russia with an adopted child. 

“So many other families have seen their children and have loved their children and can’t bring them home,” said Kristi England, 34, a family doctor. “It’s so unfair in so many ways.”

The process wasn’t easy – the Englands endured multiple background checks and spent at least $50,000 to ensure that Sonia, now called Sophia, could go home with them.

But the ban signed into law on Dec. 28 barring all U.S. adoptions – which numbered more than 60,000 over the past two decades – has marooned hundreds of families in the middle of adopting, and stranded thousands of children in orphanages throughout Russia.  

"We should do all we can so that orphaned children find a family in our country, in Russia," President Vladimir Putin said in defense of the ban.

Fueling the outrage in Russia over the fate of children adopted by Americans, Russian media reported earlier this week that Alexander Abnosov, 18, showed up in the Volga River port town of Cheboksary saying his adoptive family had mistreated him. He had left Russia five years earlier, having been adopted by a family outside Philadelphia, but said he fled after suffering from verbal abuse by his adoptive mother.  

"She would make any small problem big and always try to find a reason to shout at you," he told Russia’s state-owned Channel 1.

While UNICEF estimates there are about 740,000 children not in parental custody in Russia, only about 18,000 Russians are on the waiting list to adopt. 

But while Putin denies any direct connection, Kremlin-watchers say the ban is really about geopolitics and not about protecting kids.

NBC News

Russian child psychologist Valentina Rakova Valentina (left) stands with Kristina and Richard England and newly adopted Sonia in an orphanage in Bryansk, rural Russia.

They say it was retaliation by Moscow for an American law banning any Russian human rights violators from U.S. soil, enacted after the suspicious death in prison of Sergey Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer working for Heritage Fund, an American private equity firm. 

Russian media didn't hesitate to bolster the official line.  

Despite the negative reports, child psychologist Valentina Rakova, who has worked in the Bryansk orphanage for 30 years, says the ban is terrible for children. 

“Here in Russia we have many examples of bad parents -- even worse than these American cases -- where kids are just tossed out,” she said as she coiffed Sonia, who requires special medical attention.

“A child like Sonia, no Russian would accept her,” Rakova said. “Before the ban, orphans were offered to Russian families but no one took them in.” 

Rakova's experience confirms the U.N.'s statistics. As far as she has seen, Americans are far more likely to adopt children who are ill or suffer from a disability.

Becky Preece, a housewife from Nampa, Idaho, is one such American.  

She was finally able to take home 4-year-old Gabe, who has Down syndrome, in February, after years of filling out paperwork and a court battle.  

Preece, who like the Englands beat the ban by days but was then delayed by red tape, said she saw a complete disconnect between the horrors of Russia’s adoption ban and the kindness and hospitality of the Russians themselves. 

NBC News

Becky Preece from Nampa, Idaho, adopted 4-year-old Gabe just days before the ban on Americans adopting Russian orphans went into force.

“It’s not a matter of the people,” she said while walking with the little boy in the thick Moscow snow.

“It’s politically charged and it’s something that is hard for us to understand because it’s so different from the experience that we’ve had here.”

Preece said she was excited to get Gabe into school back home, and watch him bond with his new brother who also has Down syndrome. 

“They need the infrastructure, they need the kind of support that we get at home for our children,” she said. 

But for the hundreds of American families who missed the cut and are now unable to bring their adoptive children home, the future could mean months -- even years -- of waiting and praying that the two superpower rivals find common ground before more of society’s most vulnerable pay the price.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Jim Maceda is a London-based correspondent who has covered the Soviet Union and Russia since the 1980s. 

Related:

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Thousands march in Moscow to protest Russian adoption ban

British police said evidence at the home of Boris Berezovsky, an exiled Russian oligarch who was found dead near London on Saturday, does not indicate "third party involvement."

“It would be wrong to speculate on the cause of death until the post mortem has been carried out. We do not have evidence at this stage to suggest third party involvement,” Detective Chief Inspector Kevin Brown, Deputy Senior Investigating Officer in the case, said in a statement.

Berezovsky, 67, amassed a mammoth fortune as an oil and automobiles magnate during Russia’s post-Soviet privatization of state assets in the early 1990s. He also accrued immense political influence, catapulting Boris Yeltsin to re-election in 1996 and brokering Vladimir Putin’s rise to prominence.

But when Putin became president of Russia in 2000, Berezovsky became one of his harshest critics and often clashed with the Kremlin. He soon fled to Britain, where he was granted political asylum three years later.

Police said the tycoon’s death was “unexplained” and are working to make sense of Berezovksy’s final hours.

“The investigation team (is) building a picture of the last days of Mr. Berezovsky’s life, speaking to close friends and family to gain a better understanding of his state of mind,” said Brown.

Authorities announced Sunday that radioactive, biological and chemical specialists sent to conduct tests gave the scene an “all clear,” The Associated Press reported.

“Officials found nothing of concern in the property, and we are now progressing the investigation as normal,” according to the police statement.

Heightening the intrigue is the fact that Berezovsky was a close friend of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident who was fatally and mysteriously poisoned with radioactive polonium in London in 2006.

Berezovsky was an outspoken opponent of Putin in recent years, charging the president with dictatorial policies and domestic terrorism. Berezovsky, who survived assassination attempts – including a bombing that decapitated his driver – said he feared retributive violence after criticizing the government, according to Reuters.

A spokesman for Putin on the Russia 24 television station said that he was not aware of the president’s reaction to the news of Berezovsky’s death, but that “news of anyone’s death, no matter what kind of person they were, cannot arouse any positive emotions.”

NBC News’ Becky Bratu contributed to this report.

Mikhail Klimentyev / AFP - Getty Images

Russia's President Vladimir Putin looks at the leader of Nochniye Volki (the Night Wolves) biker group, Alexander Zaldostanov, also known as Khirurg (the Surgeon), after awarding him at a meeting with members of the Military History Society in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, on March 14.

Mikhail Klimentyev / AFP - Getty Images

Russia's President Vladimir Putin hands a medal to the leader of Nochniye Volki (the Night Wolves) biker group, Alexander Zaldostanov, also known as Khirurg (the Surgeon).

Sergei Karpukhin / AFP - Getty Images, file

Vladimir Putin, then Russian Prime Minister, rides a Harley Davidson Lehman Trike together with the leader of Nochniye Volki (the Night Wolves) biker group, Alexander Zaldostanov, also known as Khirurg (the Surgeon), during Putin's visit to Russian and Ukrainian motorbikers at their camp near Sevastopol in Ukraine's Crimea, on July 24, 2009.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin awarded a medal to Alexander 'the Surgeon' Zaldostanov, the leader of the Nochniye Volki (Night Wolves) biker group. He presented 'the Surgeon' with the medal after meeting with the Military History Society on Thursday in Moscow. As prime minister, Putin visited the Nochniye Volki's club in 2009 before they participated in a bike show. Putin has since made public appearances with 'the Surgeon' each year, going out for rides together on their bikes.

Related links:

• What did Putin say? Photo sparks online speculation
• Russian Orthodox Church apologizes for photoshopping patriarch's expensive watch
• Russia's Putin takes to sky to lead flight of cranes

News analysis

SOCHI, Russia -- Let's get one thing straight: The town that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics is a summer resort.

At 1 p.m. on Thursday -- one year to the day from the Opening Ceremony -- the temperature was 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Miami-style high-rise condos dot rich green groves of palm and cypress trees. This is Sochi, better known as the "Black Sea Pearl."

That's a testament to two things: The kind of clout Russian President Valdimir Putin has, at least with those eminent International Olympic Committee members; and the laser-like determination he's shown to make his dream come true -- to transform Sochi from a long-in-the-tooth former Soviet spa resort into an all-season, international sports playground.

Putin even flew to the 2007 IOC summit in Guatemala to explain – amazingly, in both English and French, languages he doesn't actually speak – what Sochi had to offer.

Not just vast expanses of balmy beaches, but only 30 miles to the east, majestic, untapped mountain ranges called The Caucasus.

Mikhail Klimentyev / Presidential Press Service - Ria Novosti via AFP - Getty Images, file

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks with regional Governor Alexander Tkachev during a visit to a mountain resort near 2014 Olympic host Sochi this week.

And to top it off, he offered to put up $12 billion to build his Olympic Wonderland – including a high-speed train system that would get thousands of spectators from the ice palaces below to the alpine resorts above in just 25 minutes. Blue sea meets snow-white mountains. Done deal.

But it soon became apparent that Putin's dream wasn't just about hosting the Olympic Games. He also wanted to showcase a new, modern Russia – no matter how questionable that image may be - led by a man who demanded the world's attention.

"He needed some bold proof that he can do something very important for Russia," said Fyodor Lukyanov, managing editor of Russia in Global Affairs. "The Olympic Games in this regard is a good opportunity to turn attention away from the lack of development in Russia to a big international success.''

The dream began to look like the genie out of the bottle. Even $12 billion – more than twice the total cost of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games – did not even cover the bills for the two Olympic parks, the skate and ski venues, and the road and rail lines linking the two.

Remember, Sochi had only one main road and no winter resort. About 85 percent of Putin's dream needed to be built from scratch.

One year from the start of the Games, the total cost has hit $51 billion, a new Olympic record. Half of that total is coming from the state's coffers, and the rest from Putin's rich oligarch friends.

Gazprom, the state-owned corporation Putin runs like a CEO, has even built many of the ski venues. One can see Gazprom's logo everywhere in the Olympic space in Sochi.

Billboards for Putin's other "pillar," the state-owned oil giant Rosneft, are spread around the Olympic parks and a luxurious mountain resort built entirely by Interros, the holding company owned by Putin's close oligarch friend, Vladimir Potanin.

Ivan Sekretarev / Pool via Reuters

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, second left, listens to Interros president Vladimir Potanin, left, during a tour of Olympic sites near Sochi on Wednesday.

'Golden opportunity'
Both Putin and the Sochi 2014 corporate sponsors have all denied enriching themselves by way of the games. Putin's eloquent press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, says there's nothing wrong with using corporate capitalism – and the excuse of the Olympic Games – to better the lives of all Russians.

"We have a golden opportunity to ensure that we have a boost for the whole development of the economy, not only the regional economy but the economy of the whole country," he said.

But how many ordinary Russians will benefit from this $50 billion spectacle?

People like Artyom and Mikael – both retired Russian middle-class neighbors – certainly haven't. They live in Mirni, a village cradled in the shadow of the new Olympic Stadium.

A couple of years ago the two bought into the "dream" and started to build an extension to Artyom's house, but ran out of funds, their pensions barely covering their food bills.

They have no gas, no plumbing, and suffer regular power outages, which cut off their heating. Outside, the road is permanently flooded and cratered, and their small Russian car can't take the ride to the market.

Almost everyone in Mirni – population 1500 - lives like this, but the world, they say, won't see what the real Russian life is like, as it will be hidden by Olympic barricades and banners.

"There's no place here to feel like a human," said Mikael, who, like Artyom, declined to give his last name. "Gazprom has built everything here for their needs but there's no place for simple people. Their security teams cast people away like barking dogs."

There's little doubt that "Putin's Dream" will come true. Sochi 2014 has all the ingredients to be a grand success.

Putin is already starting to stockpile vast amounts of snow for next winter, just in case. And he's bought an arsenal of snow guns, primed and ready to fire.

But terrorism is also a real threat here. With the troubled Caucasus republics nearby - like Chechnya, Dagestan and Abkhazia - it's likely that many spectators will actually be armed, plainclothes cops.

It would appear that Putin has thought of everything – including installing massive gas pipelines to fuel even more massive power stations, all brand new – to produce the world's best Olympic Games and return Russia to the glory of the days when Joseph Stalin spent his summers in his Sochi dacha, watching American cowboy movies.

But will these "Putin Games" boost the current Russian strongman's tarnished image in the West and beyond?

Lukyanov – and many other Russian analysts – don't think so. 

"He is not seen as a guy who is able to deliver a change, to deliver development, and I don't believe that the Olympic Games will be able to change Russia's image worldwide as a big, important but basically stagnating country.''

Let the Games - and the dream – begin.

Jim Maceda is an NBC News foreign correspondent based in London, currently on assignment in Sochi. He's covered Russia and the former Soviet Union for the past three decades.

Slideshow: Sochi 2014

Mikhail Mordasov / AFP - Getty Images

The Winter Olympics arrive in Sochi on Feb. 7, 2014. A look at how the Russian city is shaping up for its moment in the spotlight.

Launch slideshow

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Anatoly Maltsev / EPA

Volunteers prepare a ski jumping hill in Sochi, Russia, on Friday.

Updated at 8:24 a.m. ET: SOCHI, Russia -- Representing Russia as a volunteer at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics is a matter of national pride for 19-year-old Tatiana Kulagina.

"I want to show foreigners that we are a friendly country and that we're not just drinking vodka!" she said.

Kulagina is one of Russia's chosen, an army of 25,000 volunteers, ready and willing to work long hours without pay. With more than 160,000 applications to date, the competition to become a volunteer is rather Olympian.

The world's attention will turn to the likes of Kulagina and this Black Sea resort when it hosts the Olympic Opening Ceremony one year from Thursday.

With at least $50 billion in public and private cash being spent on the Games, Sochi is expected to surpass Beijing 2008 as the most expensive Olympics in history. That figure is five times the original estimate.

The deluge of applicants is surprising in a country which has no history of volunteering. At the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games there were no volunteers -- people were conscripted into their roles by the Communist regime.

The Russian word for volunteer -- "dobrovolets" -- is so tainted by association with Communist-era mandatory labor that the fashionable word to use now is "voluntyor," which has been borrowed from English. 

"Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was a totalitarian society and volunteer work was ordered and organized by authorities," political scientist Fyodor Lukyanov said. The collapse of Soviet Union brought tremendous change but also resulted in society becoming more individualistic with an "emphasis on survival," he added.

The volunteer spirit may be new to Russia, but it has been embraced with enthusiasm.

Vareriya Zvezdova, 19, believes her Olympic experience will change her life. 

"I just realized this will be one of the greatest things in my life," she said. "I will be a little part of this great action, but I'll represent my country and that's why I think it's great."

Olympic organizers wanted to ensure that the volunteers represented not only the diverse population of this vast nation, but also that they were the best and the brightest. Would-be volunteers were tested on their their ability to cope with pressure and their language skills.

Intensive training has already begun for successful applicants, and including one-on-one Skype sessions learning English, studying local geography and guidance on being friendly.

Sochi has traditionally attracted Russian's most influential figures. It flourished as a resort in Imperial Russia as aristocrats traveled for its subtropical climate. 

In the wake of the 1917 revolution, Sochi was transformed into a state-sponsored worker's paradise, with large spas and sanatoriums built for workers. It later became a favorite holiday destination for Joseph Stalin and his cronies. The landscape of the city bears traces of its history with the occasional neo-classical and Stalinist buildings.

After being neglected and spurned for more fashionable destinations in recent years, Sochi is experiencing a renaissance. Russia's elite, including President Vladimir Putin and wealthy oligarchs, are once again flocking to the city.

Sochi's proximity to the Caucacus mountains means that winter sports were always possible, but until recently there were few facilities. Still, a summer resort featuring palm tree-lined streets was undoubtedly a unique choice for the Winter Games. 

With the Opening Ceremony exactly a year away, temperatures this week have reach a balmy 60 degrees F in Sochi. Temperatures average about 40 degrees Fahrenheit during February.

The Associated Press noted that weather is among the concerns facing Sochi:

"The snowfall this winter has been abundant, but the Russians have made contingency plans in light of the warm weather and rain that disrupted some of the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

The Rosa Khutor resort, which will host the Alpine skiing and other events, has one of the biggest snow-making systems in Europe, according to its managing director, Alexander Belokobylsky. The resort has two water reservoirs and 400 snow generators installed along the slopes. Rosa Khutor also stores snow through the summer, keeping it packed and under a tight insulated cover, and plans to store 150,000 cubic meters (195,000 cubic yards) of snow for the games."

Slideshow: Sochi 2014

Mikhail Mordasov / AFP - Getty Images

The Winter Olympics arrive in Sochi on Feb. 7, 2014. A look at how the Russian city is shaping up for its moment in the spotlight.

Launch slideshow

Related:

'Exploitative, abusive': Activists slam conditions for workers at Olympic site

Full Russia coverage from NBC News

More Sochi coverage from NBC Olympics

Misha Japaridze / AP, file

Russia is going to try lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in jail after being accused of fraud. Magnitsky said Russian officials and organized crime member conspired to frame him, and a report by Russia's presidential human rights council found in July 2011 that Magnitsky had been repeatedly beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment while in jail.

MOSCOW -- Russia is preparing to put lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on trial, even though he died in 2009, in the latest twist in a case that has become a byword for Russian corruption and has severely strained U.S.-Russian relations.

The posthumous trial has already provoked outrage among rights groups who see the whistle-blower's case as indicative of the rampant judicial abuse, skyrocketing graft and blurred boundaries between the state and organized crime that have plagued Russia under President Vladimir Putin.

"The trial of a deceased person and the forcible involvement of his relatives is a dangerous precedent that would open a whole new chapter in Russia's worsening human rights record," Amnesty International said in a statement last week.

Prosecutors accuse Magnitsky and his former client, London-based investor William Browder, of a $230 million tax fraud carried out through subsidiaries of Browder's company, Hermitage Capital Management.

Magnitsky claimed in 2008 that the fraud was committed by an organized crime group who colluded with the corrupt Interior Ministry to register themselves as the owners of three Hermitage subsidiaries and then claim a $230 million tax rebate. He was arrested shortly after by the same officials and accused of stealing the money himself.

Abused in prison
A year later, the 37-year-old Magnitsky died in jail of pancreatitis, after what supporters claim was a systematic torture campaign. A report by Russia's presidential human rights council found in July 2011 that Magnitsky had been repeatedly beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment.

"If they have the same investigators and judges try the case, then what are they going to say — 'we're guilty and we should be punished?' It's obvious what's going to happen," Magnitsky's mother, Nataliya Magnitskaya, told The Associated Press last week.

Russia's top court ruled shortly after Magnitsky's death that posthumous trials were allowed, with the intention of allowing relatives to clear their loved ones' names. Though neither Magnitsky's relatives nor Browder say they asked for charges to be refiled, prosecutors reopened his case just days after the ruling.

A Moscow court on Monday set preliminary hearings in the case for Feb. 18. Browder is being tried in absentia; he has not been to Russia since he was banned from entering the country in 2005.

Evidence collected by Browder on a website, Russian Untouchables, indicates that the officials accused by Magnitsky became substantially wealthier after the tax rebate, spending vastly in excess of their meager official salaries on international travel, luxury cars, and prime real estate in Dubai.

Officials in Switzerland, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are attempting to trace portions of the $230 million rebate to banks in those countries.

Last December, tensions between the U.S. and Russia flared when Congress passed a law named after Magnitsky sanctioning officials Browder accuses of involvement in the fraud.

Putin at that time said that Magnitsky died of a heart attack and accused Browder of politicizing his death to distract from his own crimes.

Russia responded to the U.S. law by banning adoptions of Russian children by Americans and dropping charges against a prison doctor on trial for negligence in Magnitsky's death.

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