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The new men at the top launched a redistribution of "dishonestly acquired" assets under the pretext of returning them to the state. In reality, however, this was a crude takeover of private property for themselves and for friendly commercial entities. To this end, they began a campaign of persecution and prosecution of Russia's major property owners.
This systematic seizure of assets, with no regard for the subsequent damage to the country, was begun with Yukos - a thriving oil company with rich pickings for known associates of the president. The private-sector oligarchs were to be replaced with state-sector ones.
Spokesmen for the presidential administration have said in public that the Yukos case should serve as an example. So no need really for any pretence of legality. Behind this political performance lies the Kremlin's wish to not only legitimise the plundering of Yukos but also to rid itself of a potent political rival in the person of Mikhail Khodorkovskiy.
But the authorities are trying to do it within a legal framework, by presenting the Yukos case as one of "commonplace criminality". Aleksey Pichugin, a former member of the company's security department, became the first victim of that performance.
The numerous breaches of criminal-procedural law and of the Constitution that took place in Pichugin's case both during the pre-trial and judicial investigations turned justice into fiction. In essence, the authorities made the prosecution service and the court take part in political games, turning them into a dumb appendage and blunt instrument of the Kremlin.
Pichugin's was one of the first major trials in Moscow to be heard by a jury. But with the obviously feeble and dubious evidence for the charges against Pichugin, the court and the procuracy resorted to manipulating the course of the trial and the jury to obtain a conviction. In this way, they have compromised the objectivity and impartiality of this most democratic form of justice.
The official version of events is that the first panel of jurors to hear Pichugin's case was dissolved because some of its members failed to attend court. But the court had no grounds in law to dismiss the jury, because it was not properly established that the absentee jurors were unable to continue.
In the unofficial version of events, the first jury was dismissed because it was leaning towards an acquittal. And the non-attendance by some jurors was because of the frequent adjournments for a variety of reasons, including the judge's indisposition.
In March 2005, the second jury found Pichugin guilty by eight votes to four on all the counts against him: organising the Gorins' murder, organising the attempted murder of Kostina, and assault on Kolesov. Taking all the offences into consideration, the court sentenced him to 20 years' deprivation of liberty.
The defence team lodged numerous challenges against illegal practices during the pre-trial investigation, including the use of psychotropic substances on Pichugin, which gave grounds for the case to be referred to various bodies including the European Court of Human Rights.
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