It looks like Pres Putin is sending a message to the oligarch's. Maybe Mikhail Khodorkovsky should have listened when Putin told him who was running the country last year??. I could think of a few people / companies in the west who have far too much power considering they are not elected?.. ccooke?..

I am not Russian and I believe this is a domestic matter for the Russians to resolve and nobody should try to meddle with Russian internal affaires. That said, if you want my opinion here it comes: I fully support Putin in pressuring the oligarchs to leave politics. In my opinion, the oligarchs are some of the worst criminals, who essentially stole state assets during privatization due to connections with Yeltsin or other government officials, rather than paying the market price for these enterprises or proving that they are good at running them. A significant portion of the decline of the Russian economy after the collapse of communism can be attributed to the corruption, theft and other criminal or inept behaviours of the oligarchs. The Enron scandal is peanuts in comparison to what the oligarchs are responsible for. Any reduction in the power of these criminals is a good thing for Russia and indeed the rest of the world. Russia, however, ought to try to accomplish this as gently as possible (and yes, sometimes 'gentleness' might be difficult and harsher moves unavoidable) in order not to scare of foreign investment and indeed also private domestic investment from which it could benefit.