MOSCOW -- The arrest last weekend of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in Russia and the owner of the oil giant Yukos, shocked the international business community, enraged domestic opposition groups and sent Russian currency and bonds into a frightful free fall.
Yet the arrest of Khodorkovsky, who had gained power with the consensus of the financial oligarchs that basically ruled Russia at the end of President Boris Yeltsin's tenure, was anything but unexpected. Russian President Vladimir Putin has spent the last three years purging his initial benefactors. Two of them, Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, have fled to Europe, closely chased by Moscow's demands for extradition, and are now involved in bitter but fruitless polemics with the Kremlin.
The few moguls in Russia that remain unscathed by the purge keep low profiles -- while, according to rumor, transferring considerable portions of their fortunes to overseas bank accounts.