This is quite an interesting little excerpt from Russia Monitor:
Indeed, credible sources have reported that Putin’s handlers have approached European lawyers about the feasibility and logistics of obtaining international legal immunity (i.e., criminal and civil). Of course, there’s no such thing as international legal immunity, but it seems plausible that Putin is expecting from Medvedev the same immunity deal he gave Yeltsin, and he was exploring even greater protections that would prevent anyone from looking at the value and source of his assets if he were targeted with a civil action.
Chalk it up to the panic of watching other “petro-rulers” – as Steve LeVine calls them – crumble in just months after decades in power. The full article is well worth reading, as RM has some interesting insights on Medvedev’s unrecognized hedge going into the elections – the foreign investors prefer him.