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Chronologically and objectively, the beginning of the offensive was a follow-on from a meeting between Putin and major businessmen in February 2003. The Union of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists had proposed corruption as one of the themes for the talks with the president. But none of the Union's members were actually willing to discuss this with Putin so, as always happens in such circumstances, Khodorkovskiy stepped forward.
At that time, the talking point among the political classes was the acquisition of a small oil company, Severnaya Neft, by the state oil company Rosneft. Anyone who knew anything about the oil business put a top price on Severnaya Neft of 300 million dollars. Yet Rosneft bought it officially for 600 million, and it did so without even seeking outline approval from its shareholder or board of directors. There were rumours, and to my knowledge not without substance, that in this way Rosneft was shifting money away from its own accounts. The cash was supposedly paid into offshore accounts of Severnaya Neft's owners, but in fact half of it disappeared in an unknown direction. Rosneft was obviously taking out money for officials close to Putin. Some of that money went into an illicit campaign fund for Putin himself, for when he was "re-elected" president in 2004. And some of it was simply siphoned off.
So at that meeting in February, Khodorkovskiy said that officials close to Putin (Sechin was already running Rosneft for the Kremlin) should not set an example by themselves indulging in shady dealings, and he told Putin the Severnaya Neft story. Putin already knew about it but was hardly likely to want to talk about it before the TV cameras or with that line-up of people.
Putin took great offence at what Khodorkovskiy told him. He said that the main figures in the deal, i.e. Rosneft president Bogdanchikov and Sechin, should respond. And we all know what their response was.
Bogdanchikov, of course, has little to do with all this. Even if he was in with the Kremlin's enforcers, the only part he could play was banker.
On Putin's instructions, a group of officials headed by Sechin and Viktor Ivanov began planning the response. I can't say for sure whether Putin drew up the details on exactly how to reply to Khodorkovskiy. But subsequent events showed that even if he wasn't personally pulling the strings, he was at least aware of what was going on.
Work to set up the so-called Yukos investigation team began in early March. Investigators were hauled into Moscow from the provinces and given the job of gathering as much information as possible, the plan being to put together criminal cases on which to prosecute Yukos's top managers. Provincials were enlisted for the straightforward reason that Moscow prosecutors would have simply refused to take on such a loaded assignment.
We learnt of this team's existence somewhere about mid-March but we didn't take it seriously - it just seemed too daft. We were confident that any such plan, even if it originated from those closest to Putin, would get the thumbs down.
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