PUTIN’S OIL is the story of Russia’s energy wars and their consequences for Moscow and the world. The struggle to control the country’s oil wealth sparked a titanic conflict between Vladimir Putin and private business that changed the political course of the nation.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch owner of the country’s biggest oil firm, Yukos, was the richest and one of the most powerful men in Russia. But in October 2003 President Putin sent machine gun carrying troops to intercept his plane on a Siberian airfield and haul him back to Moscow in handcuffs.
Putin had flexed his political might, but Khodorkovsky held the key to Russia’s economy with control over a vast part of its oil resources. Now the two men were at war – Putin wanted the oil back, and Khodorkovsky wanted to be president.
In the months before his arrest, Khodorkovsky had bought into nearly every party in Russia’s parliament and was talking of a bid for power. He had begun negotiations to sell Yukos and its oil to American interests, and in a stormy confrontation in the Kremlin he had insulted Putin and accused him of corruption.
Putin knew that crushing Khodorkovsky would make him look like a tyrant and scare away Western investors, but he also knew that oil was crucial for his country’s future. Later, he would use it as a means to blackmail other states, and in the 2008 elections he would ensure his continuing hold over Russian politics.
Putin’s Oil investigates the complex world of Kremlin politics, with its conspiracies and conspiracy theories; suspicions of betrayal and double agents in the Kremlin and in Yukos; murder charges against Khodorkovsky’s partners, and the KGB defector who claims they were carried out by Kremlin agents.
Martin Sixsmith, former BBC Moscow Correspondent, has gained unprecedented access to many of the players in the drama. The resulting book is both a thriller and an analysis of the defining moments of Putin’s presidency and their ongoing impact in Russian and world politics.
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