RA in TIME Magazine

This one comes from Peter Gumbel in TIME Magazine:

But heightened political tensions between Russia and the West are sure to prompt potential investors to take an even longer, closer look before plunging into the Russian market. There has been talk in Washington and elsewhere of kicking Russia out of the G-8 group of nations, and some analysts believe the Kremlin’s actions will ultimately prove counterproductive for the economy. In a note to clients, Commerzbank analyst Michael Ganske wrote: “The strong macroeconomic story of the country is increasingly obscured by homemade negative headlines and developments that clearly worsen the economic outlook for Russia.” Ganske went so far as to call the Georgia war “a bloody next act in a screenplay that could be named ‘how to destroy the investment story of one of the strongest credits in the emerging-markets universe.’ ” The conflict with Georgia is undeniably “having an impact,” agrees Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer who represents Russia’s most famous economic victim: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who once headed the Yukos oil company. In 2003, Khodorkovsky was hounded out of business and he now languishes in a Siberian jail. “People who were among the most bullish on Russia are now ready to be the most aggressive in demonizing it,” says Amsterdam.