RIA60 30/08/07 9:34 Page 1 N°60 - August 30 2007 Published every two weeks / International Edition CONTENTS KREMLIN c P. 1-2 Politics & Government A new season marked by « low blows » KREMLIN Time seems to have accelerated in Moscow since a few days and the “post Putin” manoeuvres c A new season marked by have gotten off to a flying start even before the end of the vacations. On the side of the media close « low blows » to the Kremlin, the progressive and powerful ascendancy of Sergey Ivanov is being orchestrated, FOCUS to the point that it is in fashion to now consider him as the “successor” in the face of a Dmitry c Sergey Naryshkin Medvedev who has never really been convincing or taken on the profile of a future Russian leader. reinforces his positions But on the sidelines the blows are coming in low. Such as the attempts to gain control of Russ- neft, the 10th petroleum company of the country, controlled by Mikhail Gutseriev, of which we P. 3-7 Business & Networks have often spoken in these columns (Russia Intelligence n°56 of May 31 2007).At the beginning ENERGY of the summer, Oleg Deripaska and Mikhail Gutseriev, constrained and forced, reached an accord c Gazprom’s new targets so that the group Base Element buys Russneft for a little more than 3 billion dollars (or a price BEHIND THE SCENE inferior to all the evaluations, which ranged between 6 and 8 billion), with the approval of Vladimir c Total’s Russian idyll Putin. But lightning struck on July 31, when the Lefortovo court in Moscow decided to freeze the shares in Russneft at the request of the tax administration. And it was learned these days that SOCHI 2014 Gutseriev was the subject of an international arrest warrant, a few days after the death of his son, c The lobbies enter on stage c Vladimir Kozhin, the following an automobile accident. As of the latest news, he may be in London…This scenario, superintendent of the which is reminiscent of the Khodorkovsky affair unless one is mistaken, could well be orches- Kremlin trated by the men who control Rossneft, at the head of whom is found Igor Sechin, the deputy head of the presidential administration. It must be recognised that he would have a lot of nerve FOCUS c Oleg Deripaska, (or an infallible protection) to set himself in the way of a project having the support of Vladimir the global oligarch Putin and set in motion by someone close in the person of Oleg Deripaska (read page 6). The same questions surround the arrest of Vladimir Barsukov (alias Kumarin), described endlessly as the BEHIND THE SCENE head of the Tambov criminal group whose base is Saint Petersburg. But Barsukov is an old ac- c Telecoms : Leonid Reyman plows new fields quaintance of certain intimates of Vladimir Putin, such as the Kovalchuk brothers, Alexey Mor- dashov or Vladimir Yakunin, the boss of RZD, at the time when the Russian President worked in FOCUS the mayor’s office of the northern capital. The operation orchestrated by general prosecutor Yuri c Upheavals in store for Chayka leaves no doubt, especially since the latter complained that “very high officials” had at- the Russian energy sector tempted to block this arrest. Who is the target? Vladimir Putin, his friends in Saint Petersburg? BEHIND THE SCENE Who’s pulling the strings : Chayka, the head of the FSB, Nikolay Patrushev, the Interior minister c Polyus : Alrosa in ambush Rashid Nurgaliev, the Kremlin itself who would like to pressure into silence a man whose reve- AEROSPACE lations could be disturbing? c MAKS 2007 : mixed results for Russian industry In any case the blow is hard and could have unexpected repercussions. Needless to speak of the arrest of ten suspects in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, about which nothing is known but P. 8 Regions & CIS that the leader is a Chechen and the mastermind, whose name is kept secret, has taken refuge abroad, that a unknown number of former and current FSB agents are part of this group and that FOCUS the crime, again according to Chayka, was organised from abroad to discredit President Putin… c The governors’ waltz This chain of events is disturbing and could lead to spectacular ends. One part of these ma- noeuvres could have a relentless logic : to remove from Vladimir Putin the little authority he re- SUBSCRIPTION tains on the system of Russian power and certain of the clans around it and to impose on him a Print Edition more “controllable” successor than Ivanov, who is known for the distance he maintains from cer- (23 issues, airmailed overseas) tain of these clans which wanted his downfall on several occasions. But a reversal is always pos- €770 TTC sible… The series of photos this summer showing an athletic bare-chested president in the re- The Web Pack gion of Tuva, rekindled the spontaneous demands in the population that remain at his post…To (Print Edition be sure Putin is not Nursultan Nazarbaev, the Kazakh president, who in a few weeks cast off two + PDF + archives acess) son-in-laws from the succession (read the last number of Central Asia and Caspian Intelligence), € 880 TTC granted himself a new term as president for life and a national assembly with only deputies of the The Premium presidential party “elected”. Brutal but efficient… d Subscription (Print Edition + PDF + access to all the website contents) Discover the latest issue of our new publication « Central Asia & Caspian Intelligence» € 1200 TTC Ask for a free copy : [email protected] www.russia-intelligence.fr RIA60 30/08/07 9:34 Page 2 RUSSIA INTELLIGENCE Politics & Government FOCUS c Sergey Naryshkin reinforces his positions Even if Sergey Ivanov seems increasingly well-placed in his this state financing programme sets aside transfers amount- bid to succeed Vladimir Putin (read editorial page 1), the var- ing to 566 billion rubles (22 billion dollars) by 2013.They will ious leadership clans in the Kremlin are maintaining their mer- aimed primarily to modernise the regional infrastructure and ciless competition to carve out the power balances that will the city of Vladivostok, which has ambitions of hosting the emerge next spring. The post of head of the government, as well APEC summit of 2012. On this issue, German Gref, opposed as the control of the “energy bloc” will obviously be strategic. his Finance ministry colleague, Alexey Kudrin. The latter The heavyweights of the Russian political-economic elite are wanted that the financial flows be managed by the Treasury, likely to be called to –hopefully- higher functions in the com- while the Minister of economic development and trade was ing months and entering the final stretch in sometimes differ- promoting the idea of “single window” based at the federal ing situations. Very active in late-2006 and early 2007, Vladimir Rostroy agency. So Sergey Naryshkin will have to decide. Ac- Yakunin, the boss of the railways and the head of the “ortho- cording to information gathered by Russia Intelligence, he dox chekist” group, has been extremely discreet in recent weeks. would be leaning toward the view of German Gref. It’s true The head of Rosoboronexport, Sergey Chemezov, has for him- that the n°2 of Rostroy is none other than his old friend Vladimir self again shown proof of his influence by obtaining the nomi- Kogan, the former head of Promstroybank, the unofficial nation of his right-hand man, Vladimir Artyakov, to the posi- bank of the Saint Petersburg mayor’s office. Vladimir Kogan tion of governor of the region of Samara (read article page 8). was in any case named August 8 as the supervisor of Vladivos- tok projects (it should also be noted in passing that Sergey A few members of his team, nevertheless, indicate that he Ushakov, ex-director of the Federal protection service (FS0) would be interested in succeeding Sergey Ivanov at the lead of and former chief of security with Gazprom, has also been as- the Military-industrial commission (VPK) with the rank of vice signed by Vladimir Putin in early August to follow the security Prime minister. In the end, it’s Sergey Naryshkin – to whom aspects of the Vladivostok-2012 project). Russian Intelligence had drawn the attention of its readers as early as the fall of 2006 (n°43 of November 10 2006)—who has Finally, Sergey Naryshkin was promoted coordinator of the scored the most points this summer. eastern Siberia-Pacific ocean oil pipeline project. This deci- sion would have been taken by early June by Vladimir Putin The vice Prime minister has first of all created a surprise in at the request of the top man at Transneft, Semyon Vaynsh- being named in late July to head the OSK, the state holding tok, but it was made official only on August 18 by the Russian company in naval construction (Russia Intelligence n° 50 of government. We also remind that phase 1 of this programme March 2 2007). It had been the Defence minister, Anatoly plans the construction of a pipeline of 2694 kilometres and of Serdyukov, who had been tipped, as well as Viktor Khristenko, a capacity of 30Mt/yr between Tayshet and Skovorodino. A oil Industry and energy minister, who had the support of Sergey terminal should also be built near Nakhodka, as well as an off- Ivanov. It was at the last minute and to the general surprise shoot toward China (this last segment will be financed by that Vladimir Putin proposed the name of Sergey Naryshkin to China).