Many analysts said they hope Putin will form a new balance of power within the Kremlin, as he has shown signs of doing with the appointment of a new chief of staff, Dmitry Medvedev, who swiftly criticized prosecutors for freezing a large chunk of Yukos shares. "The supremacy of a single group is extraordinarily dangerous," Piontkovsky said.
Mark Urnov, who heads the Expertise Foundation think tank, said he fears the Yukos affair could mark a step toward an "absolute monopoly of the state on the economy and politics."
"If the situation doesn't change, in four years we risk getting an ineffective economy, because an effective economy cannot be built by entrepreneurs under the control of a corrupt state," he said.
RSS