The photo to the left shows Vladimir Putin, along with Viktor Khristenko and Governor Valery Shantsev, arriving last Thursday to Nizhny Novgorod to meet with the country’s top metals producers (source: AP). A few hours later Putin would surprise everyone by singling out the steel and coal giant Mechel (not a common practice), and using unusually harsh language to attack their pricing policies, causing losses of more than $6 billion to the company and crashing the RTS at a particularly inopportune moment. Since Putin’s attack, Mechel has apparently put into place the standard operating procedure for nearly any company about to face obliteration by the Kremlin: agree with everything the state says, and reiterate your willingness to carry out whatever instructions the government may have at the expense of your shareholders (it worked so well for BP, didn’t it?). Case in point, unimpressed with Mechel’s statements that they would cooperate with the government, Putin shaved another 25% off in Mechel’s value today by accusing them of tax evasion. Naturally, analysts are already using the Y-word to describe these events. But what is behind this sudden attack against Mechel and its billionaire owner, Igor Zyuzin, who up until last week was known to maintain fairly positive if not close relations with the government? I put in a call to a trusted colleague of mine, who has a long history of working closely with the Kremlin to get some insider insight. What follows are some of his thoughts on the matter, outlined in four key questions we should be exploring to understand the possible motives behind the Mechel fiasco.