SERGEI STEPASHIN

(now head of the Audit Chamber) and Anatoly Chubais (now head of United Electrical Systems), rose under Yeltsin but retain wide influence and power…. The newspaper Izvestia puts the epithet “new Kremlin oligarch” on Lev Levaev, an “Israeli entrepreneur” and proprietor of diamond-cutting factories who has free access to the president’s staff. The paper, compares Levaev to Roman Abramovich, the head of Sibneft oil and a member of the Duma, often said to be the most influential business figure in the country.