Despite assurances by the government that the action against Menatep and YUKOS is nothing more than a routine investigation, the choice of the prosecution belie such claims.

AEI Director of Russian Studies Leon Aron is available to comment on the trial verdict--announced on December 27--of former Yukos oil boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky--former CEO of the YUKOS oil company and Russia’s richest man--begins this month in Moscow. Part of a broader, yearlong judicial assault by the Russian government on YUKOS, Russia’s largest oil exporter, the Khodorkovsky case is certain to have repercussions far beyond the courtroom--foremost in its...

Is Russia reverting to state control of enterprise, as exemplified by the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky?

There is a Russian saying, lyod tronulsya, which means the winter ice on the river has cracked and begun to move, that things have begun to change deeply and significantly. This is what's happening in today's Russia.

Khodorkovsky's fate is almost certainly being decided not in Judge Danilkin's chambers, but in the Kremlin by two people: Vladimir Putin and his protégé, the haltingly liberal president, Dmitri Medvedev.

On December 7, 2003, Russians go to the ballot box to elect representatives to the Duma, the lower house of their national parliament. Although such elections have become an established part of Russian political life, they take place this year in a climate of growing fear about President Vladimir Putin’s...

Panelists at a November 3 AEI event discussed Russia's political and economic future in light of the arrest of YUKOS CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.