ALEKSANDR MAMUT

, among others–appeared to be doing just fine under the Putin regime. At the same time, Putin’s overall aim was becoming clearer–to remove key members of the “Family,” the group of powerful Yeltsin-era Kremlin insiders, from the political stage and replace them with his own insiders, who would take control of the state’s main power levers and financial flows. Thus it was no big surprise when Putin fired the heads of the country’s two main arms exporting agencies, Rosvooruzhenie and Promeksport, and merged them into a new state arms trading company called Rosoboroneksport. The move not only dealt a blow to the “Family”–Rosvooruzhenie had been headed by