Re YUKOS - it seems that shadowy types are at work to enrich themselves not to benefit the Russians
Yet recent announcements hint at a new plan: to break Yukos up and sell it off at artificially low prices, with the main production subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz, perhaps going to the state oil firm, Rosneft (whose new chairman, Igor Sechin, is one of President Vladimir Putin's closest aides). If that happens, says a gloomy Al Breach of Brunswick UBS, usually one of the most upbeat foreign analysts, “it would be hard not to conclude that the Kremlin's key motivations are personal power and wealth”.
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Mr Putin may well have hoped for a quicker, quieter and tidier solution. But his aloofness (except for an occasional soothing but empty statement) as the battle with Yukos escalated has taught investors two things about him that they hoped were not true. One is that he would rather unleash full-blown market panic than back down and lose face. The other—not yet proved, but increasingly suspected—is that he is willing to allow some renationalisation.
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Many of Mr Putin's allies, she says, are second-rate ex-KGB officers with no business skills who now have positions of power, “a government of the mediocre”. And, says Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist, their influence in smaller, private firms and through lobby groups in parliament is growing too.
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