Prosecutors raid Yukos subsidiary

By Stephen Dalziel Russian Affairs Analyst

This latest raid seems intended to intimidate Yukos' shareholders.

Russian prosecutors have carried out another raid on a subsidiary of the Yukos oil company.

Documents were seized on Wednesday from the offices of Yukos-Moskva.

The raid was carried out despite an announcement earlier this week by the Prosecutor's Office that they had completed their investigation into the former head of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Mr Khodorkovsky is in prison awaiting trial on fraud and tax evasion charges.

Kremlin's powers

Clearly, part of the actions by the prosecutors are designed to show not just Mr Khodorkovsky, but all of Russia's new successful businesses, that they are not totally independent.

The line that this is simply a legal issue sounds a little naive.

Raids using armed guards, and the manner of the arrest last month of Mr Khodorkovsky - storming his private jet in Siberia at five o'clock in the morning and forcing him to lie on the floor - show that an important aim of the whole Yukos affair is to prove that in Russia the Kremlin still pulls all of the strings.

This latest raid seems also intended to intimidate Yukos' shareholders.

Mr Khodorkovsky may be in gaol, and may have given up the post of chief executive of Yukos, but the Russian Prosecutor's Office seems determined to continue its pursuit of the company founded by Russia's richest man.

Board of management

On Friday morning, the first joint meeting is due to take place of the key shareholders of Yukos and Sibneft, the smaller oil company which has recently merged with Yukos to create Russia's largest oil giant.

That meeting is set to elect the board of directors and the chairman of the new joint company.

The Prosecutor's Office has succeeded in ensuring that that procedure will be carried out with one eye on the Kremlin.