I'm not a Russian citizen but I nevertheless have a few questions for him. I'd like to imagine he'd have a go at some of these if they come up among the two-million-odd questions he's likely to be sent this week, but somehow I doubt it. So here are my ten questions I think Vladimir Putin won't be answering during the Q&A.

The financial meltdown in Cyprus has re-surfaced longstanding allegations that Russian mafia money has been laundered through Cypriot bank accounts, converting cash from criminal sources into gleaming super-yachts in Limassol Marina. It's another apparent instance of Russian criminality stretching its tentacles into all manner of unlikely locations.

Two balaclavered women have been detained for staging an action in support of Pussy Riot in Moscow's Church of Christ the Saviour, exactly on year after the punk group held their "punk-prayer" in the cathedral.

A year later it all seems quite surreal. Did it really happen? Did the authorities seek the arrest of the Pussy Riot women and actually put three of them on trial charged with the serious offence of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred", a crime carrying a possible seven-year jail sentence? And were they really jailed? Sadly, of course, the answer is a triple yes.

Political statements such as 'Muslim women let's get naked' are problematic to say the least, as they represent quite a black and white, essentialist view of what feminism is and how to achieve the goals it aspires to realise.

With elections next year, Bangladesh is entering an unsettling period in its short history, as it drifts towards becoming a one-party state. If an opposition remains, which I remain hopeful it will, Bangladeshis must be given a fair and balanced view on the political choice that awaits them. While our politicians remain shamefully silent, we must defend those who are brave enough to speak out in Bangladesh. And whilst I go round taking the piss out of the not-so-great and the not-so-good in the coming months, I shall be thinking more than once how lucky I am to be able to do so.

In December 2011 Russia began to witness its greatest wave of protests since the fall of the Soviet Union. Protesters took to the streets in response to widespread allegations of fraud in the parliamentary elections. The anti-government protests have not stopped.