Word: putin
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...main orchestrator of the Murmansk project is Putin’s political nemesis, Mikhail Khodorovsky. Chairman of YukosSibneft and expected presidential candidate in March, Khodorovsky has been a motivating force in the industry’s drive to expand west. Given President Bush’s effusive rapprochement with Putin after Sept. 11, this places the U.S. in a tough spot: backing the project could give Khodorovsky a boost and undermine Putin’s political desirability...
...Putin could also suffer from U.S. support of another Russian titan, not of oil, but of the media: Vladimir Gusinsky, former owner of the TV station NTV. Guilty of loan fraud, Gusinsky fled Russia to escape charges but was recently arrested in Greece. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has received favorable media coverage from Gusinsky, has defended him, as have some U.S. business leaders and members of Congress. Even if the media magnate isn’t a national security threat as Putin claims, he is a political threat—unafraid to voice his opposition to current Russian...
...President Bush can help it, he will undoubtedly try to avoid the oligarchs until after the Russian presidential election (to say nothing of his own). But banking on this political moment, the anti-Putin oligarchs might try to force Bush’s hand. They know that if the Bush administration backs Murmansk and recommends that extradition charges be dropped against Gusinsky, Putin will suffer the political blows...
This is a peril for the United States, which ostensibly finds a friend in Putin. More pernicious, however, is the dangerous trend this situation represents. Khodorovsky and Gusinsky are using the pull of American investors in Russian oil companies and Americans supportive of Sharon against Putin. Thus, while fractured in their individual ambitions, both are trying to blackmail the United States to get what they want at home...
...because Americans believed that factions within Soviet leadership would destroy each other (and Soviet socialism) through internecine fighting. Today, we cannot bank on such grand designs and must reassess our position vis-à-vis Russia’s “internal affairs.” (In fact, Putin already seems to be losing this battle as Greece has recently refused to extradite Gusinsky...