"He took off the Kremlin dog collar," said a friend of Mikhail Prokhorov, Russia's third-richest man, as the political party Prokhorov had founded to run against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the December elections blew up in his face this month.
Prokhorov spent about $15 million setting up the new party, Right Cause, and now he wants his money back. The Kremlin stole the party from him, he claims, though he doesn't blame President Dmitry Medvedev or Prime Minister Vladimir.
It can't be the money that made him so cross: $15 million is about one-tenth of 1 percent of Prokhorov's wealth. It can't be a hunger for real democracy in Russia either; his party was being created with Kremlin backing, and the proof was that it was being allowed on television. That doesn't happen without the government's permission.