biolab.org.uk

Possibly one of the most controversial aspects of Putin’s second presidential term was the continued prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s richest man, for tax evasion and fraud. International understood this to be a reaction against Khodorkovsky’s funding of political opponents of the Kremlin though the Russian government argued that he had been attempting to corrupt a large group of individuals in the Duma to prevent changes in the tax code. The Russian public saw Khodorkovsky’s arrest as a positive thing, most of the public perceiving the oligarchs to be thieves who were unjustly enriched and robbed the country of its natural wealth.

It is indeed true that many of the initial privatizations are now known to have been fraudulent. The Yuko’s for example, valued at $40 billion in 2004, was privatized for $110 million. Like many other oligarchic groups, the Yukos name is tarred with allegations of links to criminal organisations. The fate of Yukos was interpreted by much of the Western media as a sign of Russia’s shift to a system of state capitalism. I wonder how many mr16 leds one could buy with $40 billion?