FAMILY AFFAIRS…

State-owned Transneft has monopoly control over access to Russia’s oil and gas pipelines. It is a strategic asset and a cash cow. While Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was out of the country, First Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Aksenenko fired Transneft’s president and installed a candidate hand-picked by Kremlin insiders (“Muscovite political marauders,” as Yavlinsky says) who control Sibneft Oil. The new man needed help from Interior Ministry troops to occupy his office.