HEARING FOOTSTEPS?:

Putin sends a signal to Russian oligarchs: Meeting suggests biggest companies are safe from attack (Erin E. Arvedlund, March 25, 2005, The New York Times)

Moving to stabilize Russia's shaky business climate and soothe fearful investors, President Vladimir Putin has extended an olive branch to the country's oligarchs, saying he favors a new law limiting investigations into 1990s-era privatizations.

He made his comments at a meeting with about two dozen of Russia's wealthiest business executives, an event usually held once or twice a year. But it came at a time of slowing growth and capital flight sparked by fear of another attack similar to that on the oil giant Yukos and its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Although Putin did not mention Yukos by name, he signaled that there would not be similar actions against Russia's biggest companies. [...]

"This will help the business community look into the future with greater certainty, draw up promising development plans and make new investments, and I hope reassure entrepreneurs over the security of property rights," Putin said in remarks broadcast by state-controlled television.

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Russia is gloomy as more old friends depart: The view from ... Moscow (Andrew Osborn, March 25, 2005, The Guardian)

The tumultuous events in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan transfixed the Russian media this week, with many viewing the "revolution" there as gloomy news for the Kremlin.

The collapse of the Kyrgyz government was, commentators agreed, another blow to Russian designs to keep its former back yard in good order and filled with Moscow-friendly regimes.

Moscow is already deemed to have "lost" the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine - both of which have seen peaceful revolutions that took them out of Russia's sphere of influence - and Kyrgyzstan would make it three in a row.