Moscow's sleepy political summer has been stirred by a Kremlin attack, initiated by President Vladimir Putin's closest aides, on Russia's leading oligarch and the country's richest man--Michael Khodorkovsky, the principal shareholder of the oil company Yukos. Of course, there is nothing new in such battles. Elements within Russia's political power structure have periodically waged war on the country's business elite--either to rein in the political ambitions of the oligarchs or to grab a bit of wealth for themselves--ever since the Soviet collapse.
Moscow's sleepy political summer has been stirred by a Kremlin attack, initiated by President Vladimir Putin's closest aides, on Russia's leading oligarch and the country's richest man--Michael Khodorkovsky, the principal shareholder of the oil company Yukos. Of course, there is nothing new in such battles. Elements within Russia's political power structure have periodically waged war on the country's business elite--either to rein in the political ambitions of the oligarchs or to grab a bit of wealth for themselves--ever since the Soviet collapse.