(the article is no longer available in Russia)
The policy of Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned the state and the repressive apparatus into the main robber and threat to Russian business and ordinary Russians. In Russia, it is impossible to rely on the law, it simply does not work when the interests of business intersect with the authorities. Business in the country is developing not on the basis of clear and understandable rules, but on the basis of “boyish concepts”, the key taboo of which is the ban on political influence.
So it was 20 years ago, when Putin provoked a criminal case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the Yukos case, and so it remains to this day. Russia simply cannot develop in a system where initiative, freedom and competition are condemned and, if successful, are taken away. “Red and White”, “Tinkoff”, “Bashneft” and the Yevtushenkov case, the case of Michael Calvey and the Vostochny bank, the destroyed business of Pavel Grudinin, or the politically motivated case of Gleb Fetisov are only the most hyped business stories of recent years.
At the same time, numerous violations in the work of Russian state-owned companies, which are run entirely by friends and associates of Vladimir Putin, remain unaddressed. Gazprom is allowed to screw up the project for one and a half trillion rubles, Rosneft is allowed to send three letters to everyone, destroy entire publications, but large-scale leaks and production failures remain unnoticed, Aeroflot is allowed to publicly sob and knock out billions of state subsidies, while remaining the most disgusting from the point of view of customer service, an airline whose CEO, after scandals, does not resign, but is promoted to the government.
The collection of the largest companies under the authority of the state, Vladimir Putin explained by the need to ensure the economic security of the country, because “Western ill-wishers” can try to use their shares in state-owned companies to put pressure on politics. However, placing his friends in state monopolies, Vladimir Putin did not achieve either a lack of influence on politics (the global market is much more insidious than a couple of independent managers on the board of directors, and all friends annually beat out multibillion-dollar benefits for their companies), nor a high-quality working business, which the country could be proud. But the top management of these companies earns much more than their Western counterparts for dubious results.
For 20 years, Norway, with lower oil and gas incomes, has created the world’s largest pension fund for the life of current and future generations, the Russian authorities have invested this money in palaces with water discotheques and mud rooms and the most expensive yachts in the world with golden toilets and brushes, stealing from Russians hope for a normal future.
Marina Sovina