In the space of a few weeks in October, Vladimir Putin’s Russia sent decisive signals to its population, to its neighbors, and to the world that the country is doing business in a new way. The contours of Putin’s “October revolution” signal the ascendancy of the siloviki, the “power boys” from the security services and military who now dominate Russia’s state elite.
At home, Putin’s October revolution was signaled with the arrest of the country’s richest man, oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, on charges of fraud and tax evasion. The arrest rocked domestic stock indices, which fell by 15 percent. Earlier in October, Russian authorities had raided an office of political consultants hired by the Yabloko party, one of several liberal groupings supported by Khodorkovsky. Just weeks before parliamentary elections, the raid was an ominous shot across the bow of parties in opposition to Putin. The Russian authorities followed up on Khodorkovsky’s arrest by freezing 44 percent of the assets he and his associates controlled in the giant Yukos energy firm — raising fears about further state interference in the private sector.
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