A tale of oil billions, a politically-charged power struggle and a jailed tycoon is turning into a modern-day “The Count of Monte Cristo” – Russian-style.
Russia’s colorful oil baron, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is serving time in a grim Russian prison but managed to sneak a scathing letter out of his cell and published it in a Russian newspaper. In it, he slams Russian president Vladimir Putin and says he is being wrongly imprisoned.
In this case, the Russian billionaire wrote that he’s not sorry he’s lost his riches but that he and the rest of the Motherland are being betrayed by Putin.
Khodorkovsky wrote that the Yukos seizure “is the most senseless and destructive event for the economy in all of Putin’s time in power.”
Putin, who had the oil tycoon arrested at gunpoint and jailed for fraud and non-payment of $27.5 billion in back taxes, has all but seized the Yukos oil empire that Khodorkovsky built up into a personal $15 billion fortune, which appears to have disappeared.
The Yukos scandal also disrupted global oil supplies last summer, and helped send oil prices climbing to a record $55 a barrel in October.
“They put me away . . . because they are afraid I will take revenge,” Khodorkovsky wrote.
“The small-minded people think everyone lives by their rules. But don’t worry, I’m not planning to become the Count of Monte Cristo,” he said, referring to the Dumas’ character who was wrongly imprisoned by rivals.
Yukos has filed for bankruptcy protection in Houston, but is waging a global advertising campaign in coming days to launch a legal fight claiming that its seizure by the Russian government’s entities violated bankruptcy laws here.
Put on the block by the Russian government because of $27.5 billion in back tax claims, the oil group was bought on Dec. 19 by the previously unknown Baikal Finance Group for $9.4 billion.
Last week, Russian state oil firm Rosneft said it had bought Baikal, effectively nationalizing the oil assets.