Lehman Brothers has folded, markets are diving, and a lot of powerful people in Russia are beginning to feel the heat. Tightening access to international credit and mounting stock losses are hurting Russian billionaires as well as state-owned corporations, prompting calls by some businessmen to heed Western complaints over Kremlin policy in Georgia. It appears that when it comes to containing Russia, the invisible hand of the markets may in fact be the best way for the West to temper the Kremlin’s actions in its near abroad. As reported by Bloomberg:

The head of the country’s biggest business association, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, met President Dmitry Medvedev today, urging him to take “anti-crisis” measures. “The stock market is plunging, capital is fleeing, there is a severe shortage of liquidity in the banking system, prices for many core exports are falling and inflationary pressures are strengthening,” the business group’s Alexander Shokhin said in a live televised Kremlin meeting. Current policies “may turn out to be inadequate,” he said.