Latest news with #Yukos
LeMonde
22-05-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
Between hope and doubt, the Russian opposition in exile questions Trump-Putin negotiations
Donald Trump's diplomacy has disrupted certainty, even within the Russian opposition in exile. Two days after his telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, the actions of the American president and the reactions from the Kremlin leader fueled discussions on Wednesday, May 21, in Brussels, where an anti-war conference gathered several dozen Russian opponents. The event was organized at the initiative of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oligarch who has become one of the leading figures of Russian dissent abroad. "In fact, Trump has made a very good offer to Putin. It is wrong to say that Moscow is not tempted to use it to end the war," said the former head of the oil group Yukos, who, after being convicted in Russia in a politically charged trial, was released on December 20, 2013, after 10 years in prison. Now a refugee in London, Khodorkovsky did not come to Brussels to talk about his past, but about Russia's future. He is convinced that Putin's regime will eventually fall. Since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the war has, in his view, only prolonged its survival. "I am optimistic. With Trump, there is hope for peace," he told Le Monde on the sidelines of the conference. "Putin has obtained from Washington a guarantee to keep almost everything he has conquered [Crimea and the four regions of the Donbas]. And some sanctions imposed on Russia would be lifted. So it is a good opportunity to seize. Either Putin accepts it, or he tries to push further into Ukraine toward the Dnipro with a new offensive this summer. But, in the long run, he risks encountering Ukrainian resistance strengthened by increased European military aid," Khodorkovsky warned. For him, Europe has made the right choice: "Answer tanks with tanks. But the logic of escalation will not go as far as total war because no one wants a nuclear conflict."
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Viktor Gerashchenko, governor of Russia's bank who was dubbed ‘the worst central banker in the world'
Viktor Gerashchenko, who has died aged 87, was a gruff Soviet-era central banker who in 1992 was appointed to head the Russian central bank under the country's first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin; however, his insistence on recklessly printing roubles, and the cheap credits he handed out to weak Russian banks, fuelled hyperinflation in which millions lost their savings, earning him the sobriquet 'the worst central banker in the world' from the Economist magazine. Gerashchenko's support came mainly from the old nomenklatura who saw him as holding the line against reformers in the Yeltsin administration. It was all very well, Gerashchenko remarked, for reformers to fall back on 'hackneyed quotations from Western textbooks on macroeconomics,' and he denied any link between the bank's overheated printing presses and rampaging inflation, which he claimed was caused by insufficient production. Effectively confirming administration charges that he was running his own economic and social policy, he observed that the bank could hold inflation to nothing, but only at the cost of 'unrestrained unemployment and the absence of social safeguards for the jobless'. Therefore, it chose to print more money. Gerashchenko was fired in October 1994 after the rouble lost about 30 percent of its value in one day – 'Black Tuesday'. While a few pundits remained hopeful that Russia might still build the foundations of a market-based democratic order, the economy continued to deteriorate under Gerashchenko's three successors, and in 1998, when the country defaulted on its debt, Gerashchenko was called back. Over the next four years, helped by a huge devaluation of the rouble and high oil prices, he was credited with presiding over an economic recovery in which the rouble stabilised againt the dollar, Russia ran a large trade surplus and inflation was kept in check. But the central bank remained unreformed, remaining a byword for pedantic but ineffective regulation and turning a blind eye to the behaviour of the well-connected, while running a murky web of foreign subsidiaries. In March 2002, with Russia now under President Vladimir Putin, Gerashchenko resigned from the bank. In 2004 he became chairman of the board of the oil company Yukos, which had been acquired from the state by the Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the mid-1990s. By the time Gerashchenko arrived, Khodorkovsky was awaiting trial on charges of fraud, though his main transgressions appear to have been his outspoken criticism of the Putin administration and his political ambitions, 'crimes' which saw him imprisoned for a decade and eventually forced into exile. Gerashchenko claimed to have been appointed as 'a go-between for the Kremlin and Khodorkovsky', but during his time as Yukos chairman (2004-07), most of the company's assets were seized and transferred for a fraction of their value to state-owned oil companies. 'The f---ers nicked it,' he said. Yet Gerashchenko, widely disliked as a Communist-era apparatchik, offered little political threat to Putin. In 2003 he was a co-founder of Rodina ('Motherland') party, a nationalist coalition seen as pro-Kremlin, and was elected to the state Duma. In 2004 the Kremlin was said to have asked him to play the part of challenger to Putin in the presidential elections of that year. Ultimately, however, he was refused registration by the Central Election Commission owing to a technicality. Viktor Vladimirovich Gerashchenko was born in Leningrad on December 21 1937. His father was a leading banker who became deputy chairman of the State Bank, and thanks to his father's connections Viktor rose rapidly in the Soviet banking system. At the age of 28 he became director of the London-based Moscow Narodny Bank the first Soviet foreign bank. In 1982, he moved to work in the Vneshtorgbank, responsible for Soviet foreign trade and in 1989 he became the last chairman of the State Bank of the USSR. According to a US Congressional report, he may have been involved in funding of espionage and terrorist operations. Viktor Gerashchenko, born December 21 1937, died May 11 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
The Sun
30-04-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Russia's feared killer spy unit GRU building ‘hit list' of Western enemies from MPs to journalists, warns Putin critic
RUSSIA is compiling a "hit list" of western MPs and journalists, an exiled Russian oligarch has claimed. Mikhail Khodorkovsky said GRU spies had orders to track down Kremlin critics for 'imminent' attacks. 6 6 6 The former Yukos oil baron who spent 10 years in Russian prisons said: 'Putin's spies are building a hit list of journalists, politicians, and public figures across Europe.' He claimed GRU military intelligence officers tasked agents across Europe to find targets' home and and work addresses. He said they were compiliing a 'hit list for future operations'. He added: 'The threat is real and immediate. Those who understand the regime know these intelligence-gathering operations precede direct action.' The Sun understands least two European journalists on a Russian wanted list have been targeted by Russian spies seeking personal information. It comes after MI6 warned Russian spies had gone 'feral' across Europe. Spy chief Sir Richard Moore – who is known as C at the Secret Intelligence Service – said Moscow had unleashed a 'staggeringly reckless campaign' of attacks including putting firebombs on DHL cargo planes. MI5 spy chief Ken McCallum has also warned Russia was hiring thugs to carry out attacks. He accused Moscow of plotting "arson, sabotage and more – dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness'. US and German intelligence said Moscow had planned to kill the chief executive of Rheinmetall, the German armaments giant that supplies Ukraine. Putin returns mutilated body of female Ukrainian reporter with eyes & brain MISSING after her torture by Russian captors Khordokovsky, who now lives in London, said attacks on Kremlin critics would be carried out by rent-a-thugs hired on 'anonymous online channels'. He also suggested Russia might use 'far-right groups or outright criminal elements'. A GRU team conducted the deadly Novichok nerve agent attack in Salisbury in 2018 that killed innocent mum-of-three Dawn Sturgess. Khordokovsky's warning comes after six Bulgarians based in Britain were convicted of spying for Russia, including by conducting surveillance and honey trap missions on investigative journalists. 6 6 The spy ring targeted British based journalist Christo Grozev, from the Bellingcat website, and exiled Russian journalist Roman Dobrokhotov, from the investigative website the Insider. Vanya Gaberova, 30, who ran a beauty salon in west London, was ordered to seduce Grozev. She claimed he was"hooked and in love" in WhatsApp messages shared at the Old Bailey. They are due to be sentenced next month.
Forbes
16-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Former Yukos Oil Officer Alleges Cyber Spying And Email Hacking
TOPSHOT - A picture taken on October 17, 2016 shows an employee walking behind a glass wall with ... More machine coding symbols at the headquarters of Internet security giant Kaspersky in Moscow. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP) / TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY Thibault MARCHAND (Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images) Lawyers may now using a new and powerful weapon against their opponents: cyber spying and email hacking. One of the most famous cases involves the former corporate secretary of Yukos Oil, who is now accusing a British intelligence agency of paying more than $400,000 to some Indian hackers to influence a jury verdict. This case is exhibit one, where prominent individuals claim their nemeses are hacking them to win in court. These allegations undermine U.S. citizens' trust in the judicial system, which is already being scrutinized by those who believe the White House operates above the law. Daniel Feldman's role beginning in 2003 was to safeguard Yukos' shareholders. In its heyday, Yukos produced around 20% of Russia's oil. But guess what? President Putin had its CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, arrested on some trumped-up charges. Khodorkovsky was a billionaire who funded opposition parties in Russia and spoke out against corruption. The Kremlin responded by cracking down on political opposition. State-led economic and political changes led to Yukos's downfall. However, the allegations of cyber attacks are alarming and could potentially distort law and order. They come at a time when those in power snub their noses at judicial orders. Witness the recent arrest, deportation, and imprisonment of some without due process and fair trials. If cyber criminals try to rig legal cases by hacking their opponents' emails, it could severely undermine the legal arena. The background: Feldman recently filed a legal motion in New York's federal court that accuses Vantage Intelligence of hiring an Israeli man, Aviram Azari, to find hackers from 2016 to 2018 to read Feldman's emails. Feldman said in his motion that federal prosecutors gave him this information. Vantage's clients, which are based all over the world, alleged that Feldman had breached his fiduciary obligations. The jury's verdict? $5, although Feldman lost his license to practice law for a year. Now, Feldman wants the judgement tossed in light of what he said are new revelations. The case gets even more curious because Vantage appointed Eric Prince to its board. He is the founder of a private military contractor, Blackwater, a controversial mercenary group. To be clear, Feldman does not name Prince in his lawsuit. But I got phone call asking me to explore this relationship this further. They ended the conversation when I asked if they could provide formal ties among Prince, Yukos, and Vantage. I have sent a message to Vantage asking it to weigh in on this matter. But Feldman is quoted in the Times of Israel as saying that his main way to communicate with his lawyers had been through emails. "It belies common sense that it did not create an unfair advantage for the plaintiffs." The story adds that the Justice Department and the Israeli, Azari, are declining to comment. Azari's friend speaks for him, saying he has served his time and has nothing to contribute, which readers may construe in multiple ways; one is that he is too scared to speak the truth. MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION: Imprisoned former head of Yukos oil company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky (L) ... More and head of the MENATEP group Platon Lebedev (R) stand in the defendant's box during their trial in the court in Moscow, 04 April 2005. Prosecutors requested a 10-year jail sentence for Khodorkovsky, and he faces the prospect of seeing his personal fortune confiscated and the company he built broken apart. AFP PHOTO / TATYANA MAKEYEVA (Photo credit should read TATYANA MAKEYEVA/AFP via Getty Images) The news service Reuters investigated how litigants used spying to prevail in critical court cases in 2022 and 2023, confirming that it is a significant problem. It found 35 legal cases where Indian hackers tried to steal passwords to get dirt and documents from the opposition. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia set out to evolve from a state-run economic system to a capitalistic one. That involved privatizing its prized state-run enterprises in the 1990s. Enter the age of the oligarchs, who acquired massive wealth and control over the energy sector. Yukos is a case in point. Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Putin clashed in the early 2000s, a time when the country's elite coalesced around Putin. During this period, the Russian president reinforced the government's control over the energy sector. Khodorkovsky opposed this shift and proposed that his company sell certain assets to Exxon Mobil and Chevron. His stance against corruption and his opposition to Putin's policies made him a marked man. As a result, the Kremlin sought to dismantle his influence, which culminated in his imprisonment. This was part of a broader strategy by the Russian government, which included using criminal charges, tax laws, and quashing dissent to eliminate resistance. Yukos ceased operations in 2007. However, an international court in The Hague ordered Russia to pay $50 billion in damages, saying it unlawfully seized its assets. This case is still causing a stir in international law, with people discussing expropriation and investor rights—issues that the Russian elite relegated to afterthoughts to protect political concerns. It chilled foreign investment in Russia. If Feldman proves his case in court, what does this say about the American judicial system? Does it imply that cheating pays, and America's courts may become a model of those used in totalitarian states? At a minimum, it raises serious concerns about legal integrity and the sanctity attorney-client privileges. The Feldman case may potentially demonstrate the intersection between cyber crime and legal proceedings, particularly in energy-related international disputes. Red flags abound, which reveal the frailty in digital channels and how potentially desperate parties may seek to take advantage of that. It's all about winning—not the legal process, undercutting the American form of government even further.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What to Expect When You're Expecting an Oligarchy
When tech billionaires and crypto moguls hailed Donald Trump's reelection and flocked to his inauguration ceremony and ball, million-dollar donations in hand, some were abandoning previous liberal affiliations and all were now lining up behind an openly authoritarian president. The surface rationale is that megabusiness leaders such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Marc Andreessen are safeguarding their companies and their shareholders' interests. The underlying explanation is that America is being reborn as an oligarchy. This new class—with Trump megadonor Elon Musk as its self-appointed tribune—has thrown its support behind a libertarian economic agenda that maximizes private power and minimizes public accountability. Whether the billionaires' alignment with Trump and Musk is merely pragmatic or sincerely ideological, they stand to gain from the new administration's crash program of dismantling government and regulatory agencies. For Trump, allying with such concentrated economic power helps him consolidate political control, at the expense of democracy. This fusion of money and power is nothing new. I saw something similar take shape in my native Russia. But three decades later, the Russian oligarchs' bargain has ended up with only one true beneficiary: Vladimir Putin. America's billionaires should take note. When extreme wealth combines forces with extreme power, the former can profit enormously for a time. As in Russia, the benefits of the executive's policies are likely to flow upward: Super-wealthy Americans will enjoy tax breaks and deregulation for their businesses, while the poor will face rising prices, shrinking services, and reduced opportunity. But America's tech oligarchs may discover sooner rather than later that, by undermining democratic governance, they are empowering an authoritarian president who can pick them off one by one—just as Putin did with the oligarchs who helped cement his rule. [Anne Applebaum: America's future is Hungary] When Communism collapsed in 1991 and Russia pivoted to capitalism, the country's wealth quickly ended up in the hands of a few newly minted businessmen. A mix of small-time entrepreneurs, opportunistic academics, mid-level functionaries, and shady characters with ties to organized crime, these men affiliated themselves with Boris Yeltsin's post-Soviet government. By arranging loans for Yeltsin's floundering administration in return for stakes in privatized industries, they profited directly from the fire sale of state assets. Among the most prominent of these oligarchs, as they became known, were Boris Berezovsky, a mathematician turned media mogul; Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Komsomol activist who became the owner of the oil-and-gas giant Yukos; and Vladimir Gusinsky, a theater-academy graduate who leveraged his ties to Moscow's elite to build a banking, real-estate, and media empire. While these businessmen rode around in bulletproof limousines and dropped $10,000 a bottle on champagne at ritzy new nightclubs, the rest of the country—already reeling from the Washington Consensus–inspired shock therapy that dismantled price controls, triggering hyperinflation—watched their savings vanish and sank deeper into poverty. By the 1996 election, resentment of the Yeltsin circle's insider deals was so great that the Communist Party, in disgrace five years earlier, staged a comeback that saw its candidate compete in a runoff with Yeltsin. Into this chaotic scene came Putin, a former KGB officer who joined the Yeltsin administration that year and became its security chief in 1998. In 1999, Putin was appointed prime minister; in 2000, after Yeltsin's resignation, he was elected president. The oligarchs had sponsored his rise as a dependable apparatchik who would instill order and protect their state-asset acquisitions. They misjudged him: Barely a month after his inauguration, Putin reversed the master-servant hierarchy. In June, Gusinsky was arrested on corruption charges and pressured into relinquishing control of his media holdings to the state-owned Gazprom in exchange for his release. Soon after, Berezovsky fled the country when confronted with similar tactics. Both men were accused of fraud and embezzlement. Russia's top law-enforcement officer, the prosecutor general, is—like the attorney general in the United States—a presidential nominee. These prosecutions were widely seen as politically motivated. Putin had sent a message: The oligarchs could keep their wealth as long as they obeyed his dictates and stayed out of politics. These moves met no resistance in the courts or from the Duma, Russia's parliament. Instead, lawmakers immediately granted the president additional powers that enabled him to weaken Russian federalism—dismantling the autonomy that local elites had enjoyed under Yeltsin—and to centralize power in the Kremlin. Superficially, Putin's action looked like a renationalization of state assets. In practice, it was a wealth transfer to loyalists and security-service allies. This process culminated in the 2003 takeover of Yukos. Khodorkovsky, then the richest man in Russia and a notable backer of Western-style liberal democracy, was jailed. Yukos's assets were first frozen and then sold off at auction. The main chunk went to the state-controlled Rosneft corporation, which was led by another former KGB officer, the Putin confidant Igor Sechin. Khodorkovsky's lawyers faced retaliation for representing their client against the government prosecution. With that, Putin had ended Russia's brief experiment in liberalization. Now he set about reshaping the political architecture of post-Soviet Russia. The horrific 2004 Beslan hostage crisis, when a school siege by Chechen separatists ended in a botched rescue by Russian forces and hundreds of civilian deaths, gave him his opportunity. Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, Putin abolished direct elections for provincial governors and installed Kremlin appointees. He used administrative means to suppress political opponents: Candidates seeking office faced burdensome signature requirements, registration denials, or disqualification on technicalities. Serious challengers such as Alexei Navalny faced trumped-up charges of embezzlement and fraud. Putin also moved to crush Russia's free press by revoking licenses for independent media, forcing ownership changes, and installing editorial teams that would stick to Kremlin-approved narratives. With a series of laws, Putin escalated measures against foreign NGOs, criminalizing their activity and cutting funding for human-rights work in Russia. In a charade of compliance with presidential term limits, Putin stood down in 2008, serving as prime minister under his protégé, President Dmitry Medvedev. Exploiting a constitutional loophole that barred only consecutive terms, Putin returned to the presidency in 2012—and then secured an amendment in 2020 that reset his term count and will allow him to remain in office until 2036. After public demonstrations against election fraud in 2011 and 2012, his government imposed harsh penalties for 'unauthorized protests'; today, even a single person with a placard violates the law. The Russian Orthodox Church has been a major sponsor of Putin's regime. The Church's head since 2009 has been Patriarch Kirill, an ultra-wealthy oligarch in his own right, with a fortune estimated at $4 billion. Declaring Putin's leadership 'a miracle of God' in 2012, the patriarch has provided important ideological buttressing for Putin, reframing his neo-imperialist project as a metaphysical struggle against forces opposing the 'Russian world' (a Völkisch concept encompassing any territory with a Russian-speaking population). Under Putin, Orthodox priests have become regular fixtures in schools, at official ceremonies such as rocket launches, and at the front in Ukraine. Wrapped in the Russian flag and carrying an Orthodox cross, Putin has gone about making Russia great again—with the help of his obedient oligarchs. When Russia seized Crimea, in 2014, his closest allies took a cut of Ukrainian assets: Arkady Rotenberg, the president's former judo partner, acquired confiscated land and was awarded a $3.6 billion contract to build the Crimea Bridge. By Putin's fifth-term reelection last year, the business elite had little choice but to back his 'special military operation' in Ukraine: The oligarchs' collaboration successfully shielded them from U.S. and European sanctions, and the combined wealth of Russia's 10 richest billionaires has grown since 2023. But there's a catch: Even the oligarchs live in terror. Among the numerous Russian businessmen to have suffered a fatal fall from a window in recent years was Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Lukoil, after his company called for an end to the war in Ukraine. [Read: Trump gets a taste of Putin's tactics] Putin's regime offers a stark illustration of how democratic institutions can be hollowed out. Some of Trump's recent moves contain echoes of Kremlin strategy: canceling institutional checks in favor of loyalist appointments, attacking lawyers who work for opponents, demolishing independent agencies, feeding popular delusions of imperial greatness by threatening neighbors. The reforms of Musk's DOGE outfit are set to shift public goods into private hands. America is not Russia, and no billionaires are falling from windows here. The U.S. economy remains far more diverse and dynamic, and far larger, than Russia's, but its competitive edge is already challenged by China, a threat that Trump's tariff policy is unlikely to offset. America's competitive advantages may start to erode under the new administration's war on science and education. That already happened in Russia: Once a scientific and cultural powerhouse, the country is now a rigid petrostate. Over the past two decades, Russia's scientific community has contracted by about 25 percent, thanks to declining educational standards and a brain drain of self-exiled talent. An authoritarian oligarchy is not a pleasant place to live in. Ask my 88-year-old aunt, who was hit by a car in a provincial Russian town some years ago and can no longer leave her apartment because of the long-term injuries she sustained. After the case was investigated, she was pressured to withdraw her testimony because the driver was the son of a local official. That is how Putin's 'power vertical,' as Russian political parlance refers to his highly centralized, top-down authority, reaches into the lives of the little people. The oligarchy's erosion of the rule of law trickles down, corroding public trust and ultimately leaving everyone—elites and ordinary citizens alike—at the mercy of arbitrary absolutism. The billionaire class now rallying behind Trump would do well to consider the implications of such a partnership. For now, America still has a functioning electoral system, democratic institutions that have endured for centuries rather than decades, and a diverse, vibrant civil society. It also holds a vision of itself, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, in which everyone has the right to pursue a fulfilling and self-determined life. But as Putin showed, constitutions can be amended or worked around; Trump is already musing about a third term. To follow Russia's cynical path—whereby an all-powerful ruler feeds the masses false promises of greatness and keeps the oligarchs in line with favors and threats—would be to lose sight of that vision. Article originally published at The Atlantic
