Yulia Latynina writes in the Moscow Times: The most serious economic consequence of Putin’s presidency is that many of his friends have acquired tremendous wealth over the past seven years. If, for example, oil pumped by Yuganskneftegaz was previously exported by Yukos or one of its offshore subsidiaries, now the same oil is exported by Gunvor, which has capital reserves that are estimated to be about $20 billion. Gunvor is a Geneva-based oil-trading company co-founded by Russian businessman Gennady Timchenko, who is reportedly Putin’s close friend. Putin’s reputation in the West took a serious blow after Yukos was dismantled and its CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was jailed. This means that either Putin generously let his reputation suffer in order to help Timchenko strike it rich, or else he jailed Khodorkovsky in order to channel Yukos oil to another friend. After the cut, Anders Aslund argues that the Putin administration’s theft of Yukos makes it more corrupt than Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Zaire’s Mobutu.