It wasn’t so long ago, Bloomberg notes in a smart article, that Russian oligarchs were bankrolling the government. Now, in the teeth of the credit crisis, the oligarchs are begging the government for help—and Vladimir Putin is using the bailouts as leverage to extend his power. Always an enemy of the billionaire class, Putin has insisted that funds extended to titans like Oleg Deripaska and Mikhail Fridman come with state veto power over their financial decisions. Says one Russian analyst: “In 2008, there is only one real oligarch: the state.''
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