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  Wednesday  April 6  2005    11: 16 AM

russia

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do


For what it says and what it doesn't say this article from the Saint Petersburg Times is in a class of its own. If you want to get a sense of what is really going on in Russia right now, but don't speak Russian (ergo: can't read the Russian media) I recommend you read it now. Here are some of the highlights:
[...]

Some analysts have speculated that members of Putin's administration have been split over what to do with the spoils of the state takeover of Yukos' main production unit, Yuganskneftegaz. Kremlin deputy chief of staff Igor Sechin is chairman of state-owned Rosneft, which acquired Yugansk after last December's auction, while Medvedev is chairman at Gazprom, which is due to merge with Rosneft. The two companies have openly bickered over control of assets under the terms of their merger.
[...]

Medvedev said another problem that endangered Russia's territorial integrity was the insufficient development of sparsely populated Siberia and the Far East. "If we don't develop the east, Russia will not be unified," he said.
[...]

Many business leaders who built their empires in the Yeltsin years are increasingly uncertain about what direction Putin's economic policies will take, and they are halting their investments in Russia, he said.



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