Gus > when many of them picked up privatised assets very cheaply – in return for their agreement to stay out of politics.
That's only half the story. The other half (which you conveniently omit) is their relationship with the financiers in the West, especially those who helped them finance their "picking up" of Russian assets for peanuts.
washingtontimes.com
>>Control of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's shares in the Russian oil giant Yukos have passed to renowned banker Jacob Rothschild, under a deal they concluded prior to Mr. Khodorkovsky's arrest, the Sunday Times reported.
Voting rights to the shares passed to Mr. Rothschild, 67, under a "previously unknown arrangement" designed to take effect in the event that Mr. Khodorkovsky could no longer "act as a beneficiary" of the shares, it said.
Mr. Khodorkovsky, 40, whom Russian authorities arrested at gunpoint and jailed pending further investigation last week, was said by the Sunday Times to have made the arrangement with Mr. Rothschild when he realized he was facing arrest.
Mr. Rothschild now controls the voting rights on a stake in Yukos worth almost $13.5 billion, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Moscow.<<
But the point of the argument is that, if Russia was America's "chow", as you say, it (Russia) would have allowed Rothschild, and whoever else, to take over Russian assets. Clearly, the fundamental reason Khodorkovsky incurred Putin's displeasure is that he (Khodorkovsky) was a proxy for Western finance to control Russian oil and other mineral assets. That's why I say the "chow" wasn't very well behaved. |
