-->Yukos bei € 28.00, weil ich es nicht lassen kann!

Russian Oil Poker

It could have happened in a James Bond movie. In November 2003, heavily armed special security forces suddenly arrested at gun-point a fabulously rich Russian tycoon on a Moscow-bound airplane, while the Swiss Federal Prosecution Office was requested to provide legal assistance by freezing bank accounts amounting to an astronomic 6.2 billion Swiss Francs.


Different Roads to the Top

Once upon a time there were two poor boys in Russia - and both made it to the top. Born 1952, Vladimir grew up in a shabby, rat-infested housing estate in Leningrad, where his mother had almost starved during the World War II siege of that city. Even in his childhood, the seemingly frail and inconspicuous boy prowled around the Leningrad KGB headquarters. He admired power, and in the Soviet Union, the secret services held it. To improve his physical fitness, the aspiring 007 took up Judo and became a successful Judo wrestler. Rather amused by his incessant approaches to them, KGB operatives gave him an invaluable tip by recommending the study of law as an entrance ticket to the secret services. Finally, his sticking around the KGB people was rewarded with Putin being hired as an agent. As a typical conformist 'apparatchik' he fitted well into the organization. By a stroke of extraordinary luck he was transferred to the Dresden office in East Germany where he soon became fluent in German. Though his job of recruiting spies to be sent to NATO countries was somewhat routine, it trained him for international affairs. Dresden was considered to be on the frontline of the class war, and that pleased the communist Putin, affectionately known by his nickname Volodya to his colleagues. They respected little Volodya as a stubborn pragmatist but never suspected his future meteoric career. But then Putin's Soviet universe began to fall apart, and he even resigned himself to a bleak future as a humble taxi driver in Leningrad. He actually went to that city, now renamed St. Petersburg, though not as taxi driver, but as right-hand man of reform mayor Anatoly Sobchak Now the self-styled"specialist for human relations" was clearly on the way up. - Born roughly 10 years later in remote Siberia, ambitious Mikhail Borissovich desired to become an industrialist in his early youth. The only son of a working-class family made useful contacts as a treasurer in the youth organization Komsomol. Afterwards, he went to study chemical technology at Moscow's prestigious Mendeleyev Institute. As its most brilliant graduate he was bitterly disappointed at not being given the coveted job in an armaments combine for"security reasons". Probably with good reason, he blamed his mishap on an annotation in his passport: JEW. But this injustice only hardened his resolve to climb to the top.

Gorbi Dolls

Whereas Vladimir Putin felt dispirited by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Borissovich Khodorkovsky smelled money-making opportunities. As the Komsomol members had been enjoying the privilege of experimenting with market economy, Khodorkovsky now manufactured and sold successfully dolls with the portrait of the Komsomol's former patron, the glasnost prophet Gorbachev. Moreover, he sold rotgut brandy. Profiting from the collapse of the Soviet customs administration, the enterprising doll manufacturer imported computers duty-free from abroad at a high profit. Aged 27, he was the youngest industrialist invited by Gorbachev to join a high-level discussion at the Kremlin. By the mid-1990s, Russia's predator capitalism reached its zenith. Self-styled whizz kids imported from the U.S prescribed a magic cure for the sick post-Soviet patient: by distributing 'vouchers' (worth about $ 100 each) to Russian citizens, a nation of people's capitalists should be created. By June 1994, 151 million vouchers had reportedly been distributed to 40 million Russians, now theoretically shareholders of privatised enterprises. Since most people were in urgent need of money at that time of economic chaos, predominantly criminal middlemen easily succeeded in buying up cheaply huge quantities of vouchers for a few unscrupulous robber barons called
oligarchs (derived from the Greek word oligharkia = rule of the few) acquiring huge industrial empires, while 40% of the population lived below the poverty level. Among the"haves" was the


former boxer Anatoly Bykow, who seized control of a vast Siberian aluminium combine at the price of 20 contract murders imputed to him. Choosing a more intellectual approach to the Russian gold rush, Khodorkovsky joined Russia's Big Boys by founding a mysterious banking institute called Menatep, officially created as a"Center for Intersectional Scientific and Technological Research". Very soon, Menatep passed from research to action. The prey envisaged to be privatised by auction sale was the huge petroleum company Yukos. Menatep was charged with the auction sale of 45% of its shares which were bought for a ridiculous 150 million Dollars by an unknown company named Laguna, obviously a subsidiary of Menatep which had thus sold the shares to itself. To complete the farce, Menatep was to auction off a further 30% of the Yukos shares. On revealing a company"Monblanc" as successful buyer to the stunned public, it was impossible to indicate neither its address nor the names of its directors. But never mind, lucky industrialist Mikhail had now added to his huge industrial holdings, by a kind of hat trick, petroleum assets worth more than 50 billion Dollars, because in the meantime Yukos had been discovered to sit on vast previously untapped oil reserves. Saving his own cash, Khodorkovsky had even managed to pay most of the price by future oil deliveries of the company"bought". Unfortunately, Dmitry Filipov, chairman of Menatep's St. Petersburg branch, could only briefly enjoy Menatep's oil-gained success, as he was suddenly torn apart by a radio-controlled bomb in October 1998 as a result of the"oil wars", a sorry fate suffered also by other petroleum executives in that city.

Family Business

President Yelzin had little opportunity of effectively running the country, since his preferred medicine against his numerous ailments was vodka. While drunk, his entourage known as 'The Family' took care of matters, chiefly by lining their own pockets, besides letting the"oligarchs" plunder the country. But in 1995, these robber barons grew alarmed by a possible return of the Communists to power in the 1996 elections. Fortunately, the oligarch Berezovsky had in the meantime acquired the Russian television network ORT which staged a media campaign in favour of Yelzin. Moreover, the oligarchs decided to finance the campaign by as much as 500 million Dollars in spite of the legally allowed maximum of 3 million. Inevitably, the inept buffoon Yelzin was re-elected and promptly steered Russia toward the abyss. He rewarded the helpful Berezovsky by letting him manage the growing wealth of the Family. This tycoon was also accused of siphoning off 200 million Dollars from the coffers of the Russian airline Aeroflot to his Swiss companies Forus and Andava in Lausanne. On request of Russia's chief prosecutor Skuratov, Geneva's public prosecutor Bertossa initiated an investigation of Beghjet Pacolli, owner of the Lugano-based Mabetex company which had refurbished Moscow's Kremlin and was supposed to have paid bribes of roughly 30 million Dollars to the Family and the Kremlin's treasurer Borodin (Putin's first employer after his arrival in Moscow), besides making available credit cards for Swiss shopping sprees of Yelzin's daughters Tatyana and Yelena. - Russia's huge natural resources were now chiefly tapped for illegal exportation of capital. For example, nickel was bought by a Russian company dirt cheap at a state-controlled price and subsequently exported to a foreign offshore or Swiss subsidiary, which sold it at world-market prices several times higher, thus achieving astronomic profits abroad and simultaneously depleting Russia's treasury. To keep the country going, high-interest long-term treasury bonds in Roubles were issued for huge amounts. But when interest rates thereon neared 200%, the economy and the Rouble's exchange rate collapsed. In August 1998, Russia was bankrupt and declared a moratorium on its debts, scaring the world's financial community and causing it huge losses. The Moscow stock index dropped by almost 90 percent! The situation was further aggravated by extremely low oil prices, Russia's chief foreign-exchange earner.


Czarevitch Putin

While oligarchs like Khodorkovsky entertained the world by their extravagances, the former 'spook' Putin kept a low pofile, though enjoying continuous streaks of luck. Acting as campaign manager for a second term of St. Peterburg's mayor Sobchak, the latter's defeat was Vladimir's good fortune because the former mayor was later accused of corruption and of tolerating the growth of organized crime in that city. In 1996 Putin left the"Gangster City" in order to head the Kremlin's asset management department in Moscow. Then Yelzin appointed the poker-faced ex-KGB colonel head of the FSB, its successor organization. But not even 1% of the Russians would have known his name, when suddenly Yelzin nominated him Prime Minister in August 1999. Meanwhile, the situation among the government's protagonists had further deteriorated into a nasty mud-slinging contest, and Yelzin was practically incapacitated by his health and alcohol troubles. At New Year's Eve 1999, Czar Boris (Yelzin's inadequate nickname) finally abdicated and surprisingly appointed Czarevitch Putin, aged 47, to succeed him as President. This meteoric ascent to power had been possible thanks to a Faustian deal: the basically incorruptible Putin had to guarantee to the corrupt Yelzin Family certain privileges and protection from criminal prosecution despite his own disgust at the rampant corruption. All pending scandals including their Swiss metastases were thus hushed up. The stunned world chiefly wondered whether the unimposing and hardly charismatic Putin could stick to the shaky throne left by Czar Boris. He did, as during his stay in Moscow he had rapidly built a network of FSB supporters and other apparatchiks known as Siloviki. Putin certainly remembered that Russia's Soviet rulers had mainly been kept in power by the secret services. He also was favoured by an improving economy due to incessantly rising prices of oil, natural gas and other raw materials, allowing accumulation of a spectacular foreign-exchange reserve of nearly 80 million Dollars. Its new-gained financial respectability opened the door to Russia's membership in the elite G-8 club, and it is now a candidate for WTO membership

Dictatorship of Law

Sensing that after the chaotic Yelzin times people longed for stability with wages paid on time rather than empty promises of affluence, Putin promised a"Dictatorship of the Rule of Law". In view of 5000 contract murders every year, this seemed a laudable objective. From Yelzin, Putin had inherited Chechenya's problems, where a disastrous war had been fought 1994-6, devastating the country and causing the Russian army humiliating setbacks against the minuscule Caucasus people wanting to separate from the Russian Federation. The autocratic Putin ruthlessly resumed the war, backed by the majority of citizens who had already opposed the dismemberment of the Soviet Union in 1991 and despised the Chechens not least for their prominent role in the post-Soviet gang- ster syndicates. Moreover, important pipelines ran through Chechenya - and Russia's profitable oil business ranked higher than Chechen blood. While Putin enjoyed the world's limelight at the inauguration ceremony for his second term in May 2004, fortune no longer favoured the once lucky Mikhail, whose net worth had been estimated at 9 billion Dollars. Since his arrest in November 2003 he had shared a prison cell with two inmates. Several requests to be released on bail had been turned down. Caviar and champagne had been replaced by a monotonous diet of gruel. Jealous of the flashy oligarchs and their billions, the Siloviki apparently had singled out, with Putin's tacit consent, Khodorkovsky to teach the"privatisation pirates" thereby a lesson. Stepashin, a Siloviki member and head of the Russian audit office, declared at a conference in April that the fraudulent privatisation drive of the 90s should be re-examined, as Russia's assets had been sold out far below their real value. As a result, the national wealth was alleged to have been hijacked by a few unscrupulous privatisation pirates in an economy riddled with corruption, which obviously had only been possible with the collusion of the very same Siloviki now acting as guardians of virtue None-theless, a wholesale housecleaning is apparently envisaged by the Kremlin. Its opening salvo was fired in May 2004 by Russia's public prosecutors who indicted Khodorkovsky for innumerable



criminal offences listed in 227 volumes, among them multiple fraud, tax evasion and constitution of a criminal association. Russia's admired Wunderkind, who so eloquently used to describe the advantages of a sound corporate governance at international conferences, was now cast in the role of a gangster together with his co-defendant and Yukos partner Platon Lebedev. Another Yukos manager has even been accused of having commissioned two contract assassinations!

Back to the USSR?

That's how critical Russians joke about the Putin's authoritarian Siloviki regime. Indeed, almost 80% of today's functionaries once belonged to the former 'nomenklatura', the Soviet upper crust. However, since they mainly have to cope with maximum monthly salaries of around 300 Dollars, they envy the large fortunes and influence of roughly 100 oligarchs owning one quarter of Russia's wealth. To save his skin, Khodorkovsky should best have followed the advice of other oligarchs to emigrate, after paying a fine of say 1 billion Dollars. Instead, after police had raided Yukos headquarters, he asked Moscow's American ambassador to intercede in his favour, which earned him the reputation of a traitor. His open criticism of Putin's autocratic democracy along with his suspected political aspirations, including running for the Presidency in 2008, further exposed him to attacks from hardliners. However, as heralded by Stepashin, there obviously is a general realignment aiming at resuming state control of Russia's immense natural resources. The fact that America's Exxon wanted to acquire a 40% stake in oil giant Yukos shortly before the crackdown looked like a foreign takeover. As Russia is today the chief supplier of oil, before Saudi Arabia, and sits on enormous reserves of natural gas, it is a key player in the world's energy poker, especially since the flow of Middle Eastern oil is jeopardized by the threat of terrorism. On the other hand, Russia's huge oil reservoirs require capital for infrastructure development, whereas the crackdown on Yukos and other Russian companies could scare away foreign investors. Who wants to invest his money in companies who might suddenly be expropriated? Criminal charges could be construed in respect of almost any privatised company in Russia! Due to their many business transactions in Switzerland, both Yukos and Menatep keep Swiss accounts worth billions of Swiss Francs; hence Russia's request for legal assistance. But in this case Switzerland risks to be blamed as an accomplice in expropriating the Russian assets of private business companies - bad publicity for a country managing foreign assets amounting to trillions of Swiss Francs. - After Yukos had repeatedly been assured of having duly paid all taxes owed for the year 2000, a Russian court suddenly requested the company on 26 May 2004 to pay an enormous 3.4 billion Dollars in tax arrears for fiscal 2000 alone, which could bankrupt the oil giant. Within 24 hours, the Yukos share lost 15% of its stock-exchange value. As other drastic sentences will certainly follow, Russia' once richest tycoon might sadly end up as a billionaire in debts pondering the previous warning given by a friend:"In Russian history, there is not a single instance of an individual beating the state in a conflict of power." With his usual arrogance, the oligarch had then replied:"I will be the first."
28 May 2004 Marcel Bucher




P.S: dated 17 June 2004
Attracting the media's worldwide attention, the main proceedings of the Yukos trial commenced on 16 June 2004 in Moscow, only to be adjourned for about one week due to illness of one defence lawyer. But the whole world could watch the sorry spectacle of defendants Khodorkovsky and Lebedev as two jailbirds behind thick iron bars. The freezing of Swiss bank accounts by the Swiss Federal Prosecution Office had met with a barrage of appeals lodged by Yukos's lawyers. Many were rejected by the Lausanne-based Federal Supreme Court, but two appeals were admitted, thereby deblocking a total of CHF 3.3 billion of previously frozen Swiss bank accounts, which are now again at the disposal of the Yukos people. Other appeals are still pending, and the legal assistance procedures will be continued. It is very likely that an annoyed Russian Ministry of Justice will contest the deblocking of the billions held on Swiss accounts.