The Hindu : Putin out to clip the wings of oligarchs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 05, 2003

International

International

Putin out to clip the wings of oligarchs

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW JULY 4. Russian authorities have declared war on the country's richest private company and its billionaire owners in what is seen as a crackdown on political ambitions of Russian business tycoons ahead of parliamentary elections later this year.The chief executive officer of the biggest oil major Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was interrogated on Friday in connection with the detention on Thursday of the head of a subsidiary controlling 61 per cent of a of YUKOS shares, Platon Lebedev, on charges of defrauding the state of $283 millions in illegal appropriation of a stake in a big fertilizer plant eight years ago.

Mr. Khodorkovsky heads the list of 17 Russian billionaires, according to the Forbes magazine, with an estimated $8 billions, while Mr. Lebedev ranks 16th in the list with $1,3 billion. Earlier this year their company, Yukos, merged with another Russian oil major, Sibneft, to form the world's fourth largest oil company.Analysts were unanimous in interpreting Mr. Lebedev's arrest as a politically motivated attack on the Yukos head, Mr. Khodorkovsky. The privatisation fraud dispute involving Mr. Lebedev was settled out-of-court last year. Anyway, it was not the biggest or most scandalous selloff dating back to the 1990s crime-ridden privatisation of state assets in post-Soviet Russia.

Mr. Khodorkovsky has apparently ignored the Russian President, Vladimir Putin's warning to ambitious oligarchs to keep clear of politics. Two politically active tycoons of the Boris Yeltsin era ended up in exile three years ago when they tried to influence Mr. Putin.

Mr. Khodorkovsky has made no secret of the fact he was personally funding two liberal parties, the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko, as well as the Communists — three main Opposition groups which may prevent the pro-government United Russia and its allies from winning a majority in the coming December elections. The oligarchs' political activity does not threaten Mr. Putin's chances of winning a second presidential term next year, but may influence the choice of his successor in 2008.

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