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The Trial
Russia Profile,
04/07/2010Imprisoned oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky finally took to the stand Tuesday to open his defense against allegations of embezzlement and money laundering, after a year of hearings for the prosecution. The former Yukos manager’s eight year prison sentence is in its sixth year, but if he is found guilty in this second trial he faces another 22 and a half on the inside. And after a Khodorkovsky article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta was taken to task for “extremism,” a third case could be opened against Russia’s once richest man.
Yukos’ Banquo Act
Russia Profile,
03/18/2010Russia’s biggest oil company Rosneft got a scare yesterday when the Reuters news agency reported that Yukos Capital, the successor trust to the now-defunct oil company, had won two injunctions against Rosneft, freezing its assets in Britain and the United States. Rosneft, which swallowed most of Yukos’s assets after it was bankrupted by a politically-tinged tax-evasion case, saw its share price plunge almost three percent amid speculation that the injunction could affect up to a fifth of Russia’s oil exporting capacity. Was it an overreaction, or has Yukos’ ghost come back to haunt Rosneft’s banquet?
Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel: Is Putin Sabotaging Medvedev’s Initiatives?
Introduced by Vladimir Frolov
Russia Profile,
01/22/2010It has recently been suggested that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin acts as the biggest spoiler of President Dmitry Medvedev’s foreign policy initiatives (see David Kramer, “Putin is Medvedev’s Biggest Spoiler”, Moscow Times, January 13, 2010). Indeed, as David Kramer points out, the case could be made that Putin, for reasons better known to him, regularly interferes at key junctures to upset or altogether derail Medvedev’s key foreign policy initiatives. Is this assessment fair? Would this be an indication of Putin’s continued strong interest in seeking another presidential term in 2012? Where does the buck stop in Moscow on international issues?
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SECHIN, Igor Ivanovich
Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rosneft
07/23/2010
Igor Ivanovich Sechin (Игорь Иванович Сечин) was born on September 7, 1960 in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. A Russian deputy prime minister, he joined oil giant Rosneft in 2004 and has been chairman of the board of directors since 2006.
Sechin studied romance languages at Leningrad State University from 1979 to 1984, specializing in Portuguese and French. Upon graduation he worked in Mozambique and Angola as a translator and interpreter as well as with Soviet trade and diplomatic missions. Private intelligence agency Stratfor has alleged that during his time in Africa, Sechin was heavily involved in the Soviet Union's smuggling of weapons to Latin America and the Middle East. A number of sources also indicate that he had links with suspected arms dealer Viktor Bout, although Bout has denied this.
From 1988 to 1991 Sechin worked in the Leningrad local administration. He then moved to serve a number of posts in the office of the St. Petersburg Mayor. In 1994 he was named chief of staff to Vladimir Putin, then first deputy mayor. He remained close to Putin as his deputy in various departments of the St Petersburg Mayor’s office until July 1998.
Following Putin’s election to the post of Russian prime minister in August 1999, Sechin was appointed first deputy chief of staff. He served in this post from November 1999 to January 2000. Later in 2000, following Putin’s promotion to Russian president, Sechin was named deputy chief of the presidential administration, a position he served in until 2008. For the last four years of this post, he was also a presidential aide.
In July 27, 2004 he was named chairman of the board of directors of Rosneft, the Russian oil company which was the main beneficiary of the demise of Yukos. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of Yukos, who was jailed on tax evasion charges, has accused Sechin of destroying Yukos for his own material gain.
Sechin is married and has a daughter, who is married to the son of the former Justice Minister and former Public Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov.
Related Sources:
Russian government profile of Igor Sechin
In Interview, Bout Denies Links to Sechin (03/17/2009 The Moscow Times)
Jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky 'framed' by key Putin aide (05/18/2008 The Sunday Times)
