To kill an oligarch

Since agents from the Prosecutor-General's office arrested Vladimir Gusinsky, the media magnate and the most consistent critic of President Vladimir Putin in the past months, on suspicion of embezzling state funds, journalists and a number of politicians have joined the chorus of protest, calling it the latest bid by the Kremlin to try to squelch free speech by silencing Gusinsky and news outlets he controls. All dissenters have been branded fools, or worse.

Yet I have already written, and I'll venture to say it again that the power struggle between Gusinsky's empire and the Kremlin is not a conflict between an authoritarian state and a media group opposed to that regime. Nor, so far, has any evidence of the Kremlin's intentions to curb the freedom of speech, or coral Russia's-already obsequious-mass media, been produced.

Up to now, all the evidence has been that this is a conflict between two oligarchic clans-the Kremlin's, which includes many top officials, including elected ones-and thus has at least a shred of legitimacy in the eyes of Russians, and that of Gusinsky-which does not.

The history of the conflict is well recorded. During last December's parliamentary elections the centrist Unity and the liberal Union of Rightwing Forces, controlled by the Kremlin, clashed with the centrist Fatherland-All Russia bloc, led by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, both Gusinsky's allies, and the Grigory Yavlinsky's reformist Yabloko movement. The Kremlin won this campaign decisively-setting up Putin's triumph in the presidential election.

But since Putin became president, Gusinsky has been demanding five things. One, that Putin ousted members of the "Family"-a network of former President Boris Yeltsin's family members and cronies-from the Kremlin. Two, that he exposed corruption of Yeltsin's courtiers. Three, that he limited the number-and influence-of his former KGB colleagues in the new administration. Four, that he took a less tough line in relations with the west. Five, that he brokered a ceasefire in Chechnya.

Of these, Chechnya has been the biggest irritant for the Kremlin. Gusinsky's NTV television, Russia's biggest private channel, has been critical of the war in Chechnya and sceptical about the democratic credentials of Putin.

Earlier this month Gusinsky told a group of foreign reporters in Moscow that he was "really alarmed" at political developments in Russia.

"Only totalitarian countries can solve problems that way, by pure force," he said, discussing the Chechen war.

This underlined another fatal flaw of Gusinsky in the Kremlin's eyes-his cosiness to the west. He is one of the few public figures in Russia who supported Nato's campaign against President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia last year. During his recent visit to Moscow, President Bill Clinton made a point of implicitly supporting Gusinsky against Kremlin pressure by appearing on his Ekho Moskvy radio station for a phone-in.

In Washington, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said after Gusinsky's arrest: "We are quite concerned about some of the steps taken against the free media."

So, even though Putin won every battle against Gusinsky, his courtiers noticed several things-and they did not like what they saw.

First, Gusinsky's media outlets vociferously opposed Putin's policies in Chechnya. Second, all criticism of the Kremlin coincided and, indeed, resembled-in form and essence-the criticism emanating from western capitals.

As a result, some people in the Kremlin got the impression that Gusinsky's actions were co-ordinated with certain western official and unofficial agencies.

In a word, the Kremlin began to view Gusinsky's Media-Most group not only as a player in Russian domestic politics, but as an oligarchic clan whose goals run counter to Russian national interests.

First, the Kremlin tried to put pressure on banks and other financial outlets to dry up Gusinsky's lines of credit. When that did not work, the Kremlin adopted a more direct approach.

In May, squads of masked police and officials, said to be tax inspectors, raided the headquarters of Media-most holding company, the nerve centre of Gusinsky's business empire, and carried off crates of documents and tapes.

The general prosecutor's office first said the headquarters were being searched in connection with an investigation into illegally obtaining and disseminating information.

Now, with Gusinsky's arrest, the conflict became a full-blown conflagration.

The one result so far has been consolidation of the Kremlin's opponents of all stripes and colours. Seventeen of Russia's leading businessmen said on Wednesday they opposed Gusinsky's detention, increasing the pressure on Putin to have him freed.

In a letter addressed to chief prosecutor-general Vladimir Ustinov, the businessmen said Gusinsky should be released and that they were worried over the future of democratic reforms.

"Until yesterday we believed that we lived in a democratic country and today we have serious doubts," the letter said.

The signatories included Rem Vyakhirev, the head of gas giant Gazprom and Anatoly Chubais, a former leading light in the liberal community and now head of state electricity monopolist Unified Energy System (UES).

Boris Berezovsky, another business magnate, whose media properties helped bring Putin to power and who has often been at odds with Gusinsky, said: "My personal attitude to what happened in the past and what has now happened to Gusinsky is sharply negative, whether Gusinsky is guilty of the crimes he is accused of or not."

So, it appears, now we have two trials going on: the people (or the Kremlin) against Vladimir Gusinsky, and the business elite against the Kremlin. Neither is a trial Putin can afford to lose.