| It was five o'clock in the morning exactly a week ago
when a private
Tupolev 154 jet landed at the freezing Siberian airport of Novosibirsk
to
refuel.
As the plane taxied to a halt, two minivans with smoked-glass windows
sped
across the bumpy tarmac through the darkness. More than a dozen heavily
armed men wearing combat fatigues jumped out and swarmed up the steps
to
the forward cabin where Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man, was
sitting.
"This is the FSB, hands above your heads, don't move or we'll shoot,"
one
of the men shouted. Then another turned to the tycoon and said: "We
have
orders. Follow us." As Mr Khodorkovsky was being led away he must
have
known that it was dangerous even for a man who runs Russia's richest
company and the world's fourth largest oil concern to cross the KGB men
at
the heart of the Kremlin.
But that is what he had done when he reneged on an unwritten deal struck
three years ago with President Vladimir Putin not to enter into politics.
Despite repeated warnings, this year he began buying up political support
before the state Duma, or parliament, elections next month.
Eric Kraus, the chief strategist at Sovlink Securities, an investment
bank,
thinks Mr Khodorkovsky's actions made his own downfall inevitable. He
said:
"Khodorkovsky seems to have been suffering from rock star syndrome.
Everybody lobbies, but he seems to have thought he could buy control of
the
Duma."
From Siberia Mr Khodorkovsky was taken to Matrosskaya Tishina, a
notoriously overcrowded prison in eastern Moscow. Charged with fraud,
tax
evasion and forgery to the tune of ?600 million, he now spends his days
in
a tiny cell with two bunk beds and a lavatory hidden by a flimsy partition.
He is allowed to wash once a week in the shower in the corner.
Breakfast is thin fish soup and tea, dinner buckwheat with butter. Midweek
he received his first package from outside - a tracksuit, slippers and
chocolate.
As Mr Khodorkovsky plots his comeback, newspapers have been running
banner
headlines calling his arrest a "coup d'etat" and speculating
that a return
to totalitarian rule is imminent.
The story of Mr Khodorkovsky seems to be the end of a wild chapter of
Russia's history under which well-connected businessmen acquired state
assets for peanuts, providing the funds for the orgy of luxury spending
London shopkeepers see. Most Russians will probably not be unhappy to
see
the richest of the so-called oligarchs suffer. They see the Yeltsin era
and
the rise of the oligarchs as the low point in a century of disasters.
Grigory Yavlinsky, the
leader of the Yabloko faction, which is partially financed by Mr Khodorkovsky,
has decried Mr Putin's move, accusing him of Stalinism.
He told The Telegraph yesterday: "In the 21st century you can't
create a
succesful economy without political freedom. If the people have no freedom,
no human rights and no protection, how can they work?"
Mr Putin has been fighting hard to scotch rumours of a return to the
bad
old days of the command economy. He reassured a meeting of Russian and
western investment bankers in the Kremlin and appointed Dmitry Medvedev,
considered a loyalist but a moderate, to replace Alexander Voloshin, his
presidential chief of staff who had resigned in protest.
Some even believe the fall of Mr Khodorkovsky could yet prove a blessing
in
disguise for Russia.
Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Russia's Alfa Bank, said: "If
this works
out well, it will actually be much better for the investment case. It
means
the government will be able to push reforms through and make a clear
distinction between state and business. The oligarchs have been blocking
Putin's reform plans."
See also:
YUKOS
case
| 