Word: borises
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It's a tale of two tycoons, and it tells you everything about the state of Russia today. Earlier this year, Roman Abramovich, the Russian oil magnate and Governor of the desolate Arctic region of Chukotka, was worth an estimated $5.7 billion - second only to Yukos oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky...
Many in Russia view the arrest as the centerpiece of a power struggle between "the Siloviki," as President Vladimir Putin's coterie of security officials and bureaucrats is known, and "the Family," the billionaire oligarchs and top officials who thrived during the wild days of privatization under former President Boris...
Khodorkovsky's real transgression may have been giving financial support this year to several opposition parties, a move widely viewed as setting himself up as a future presidential challenger. That apparently rankled Putin, whose deal with the oligarchs is blunt: You stay out of national politics; I'll let you...
The combination of his business deals and his political ambitions prompted the siloviki to press for action against Khodorkovsky. The Russian state is too weak to accept what those in power see as a challenge of this type. And then, despite open calls for his arrest, Khodorkovsky played chicken, refusing...
TIME.com: So, for those around Putin, this action is broadly designed as a corrective to what Boris Yeltsin did in the 1990s, when he sold off many strategic industries at bargain-basement prices to the oligarchs in exchange for financing his election?