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70-568: The seven businessmen were identified by oligarch Boris Berezovsky in an October 1996 interview; and in an article published on 14 November 1996 journalist Andrei Fadin  [ ru ] coined the term "semibankirshchina" as a takeoff on the Seven Boyars ( Russian : семибоярщина , romanized :  semiboyarshchina ), who deposed Tsar Vasily Shuisky in 1610 during the Time of Troubles . Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky , in

140-660: A 29 October 1996 interview in the Financial Times , named seven Russian bankers and businessmen that he claimed controlled most of the economy and media in Russia and had helped bankroll Boris Yeltsin ’s re-election campaign in 1996. The word "Semibankirschina" was subsequently coined by the Russian journalist Andrey Fadin of the Obschaya Gazeta newspaper, in a 14 November 1996 article titled "Semibankirschina as

210-580: A New Russian Variation of Semiboyarschina". He wrote that "they control the access to budget money and basically all investment opportunities inside the country. They own the gigantic information resource of the major TV channels. They form the President's opinion. Those who didn't want to walk along them were either strangled or left the circle." Slightly over a year later, Fadin was killed in a car accident. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn also used this word in his critical 1998 essay Russia under Avalanche to describe

280-584: A banana republic" in a letter to The New York Times . In February, Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili sold their stake in ORT to Roman Abramovich, who promptly ceded editorial control to the Kremlin. Berezovsky later claimed that there was a secret understanding that Nikolai Glushkov would be released from prison as part of that deal, a promise that was never fulfilled. In April, the government took control of Vladimir Gusinsky 's NTV . Berezovsky then moved to acquire

350-406: A bonded loan to build a plant producing a "people's car". The project did not collect sufficient funds for the plant and the funds were instead invested into AvtoVAZ production, while the debt to investors was swapped for equity. By 2000, AVVA held about one-third of AvtoVAZ. In 1994, Berezovsky was the target of a car bombing incident, but survived the assassination attempt, in which his driver

420-576: A car dealership. They enjoyed friendly relations; on occasion, Berezovsky took Putin skiing with him in Switzerland. In February 1999, when Berezovsky's political standing looked uncertain because of his clash with Primakov over Aeroflot, Putin, then Director of the FSB , made a bold gesture of friendship by showing up at a birthday party for Berezovsky's wife. "I absolutely do not care what Primakov thinks of me", Putin told Berezovsky on that night. That

490-521: A contest of political wills between Chubais and Berezovsky. Potanin's victory unleashed a bitter media war, in which ORT and NTV accused the Chubais group of fixing the auction in favor of Potanin, whereas Chubais charged Berezovsky with abusing his government position to advance his business interests. Both sides appealed to Yeltsin, who had proclaimed a new era of "fair" privatization "based on strict legislative rules and allowing no deviations". In

560-439: A controlling stake in a smaller network, TV-6, made Patarkatsishvili its chairman, and offered employment to hundreds of locked out NTV journalists. Almost immediately, Patarkatshishvili became a target of police investigation and fled the country. In January 2002 a Russian arbitration court forced TV-6 (Russia) into liquidation. The liquidation of TV-6 was precipitated by LUKoil , a partly state-owned minority shareholder, using

630-491: A group of seven business moguls ironically named after the 17th century seven boyars who owned the majority of Russian media resources and who decided to promote Boris Yeltsin every way possible. Since Yeltsin was highly unpopular by that time, with only 3—8% support, a complex technology of crowd manipulation was developed by the Gleb Pavlovsky 's and Marat Gelman 's think tank Foundation for Effective Politics, with

700-512: A later profile by The Guardian , "Berezovsky masterminded the 1996 re-election of Boris Yeltsin... He and his billionaire friends coughed up £140 million for Yeltsin's campaign". In the summer of 1996, Berezovsky had emerged as a key advisor to Yeltsin, allied with Anatoly Chubais , opposing a group of hardliners led by General Alexander Korzhakov . One night in June, in the drawing room of Club Logovaz, Berezovsky, Chubais and others plotted

770-527: A piece of legislation that was almost immediately repealed. In 2001, Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili ended their involvement in Sibneft for a US$ 1.3 billion fee from Roman Abramovich . This transaction was the subject of a later dispute in the UK commercial courts, with Berezovsky alleging that he had been put under pressure to sell his stake to Abramovich at a fraction of the true value, an allegation that

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840-464: A question about Berezovsky, he warned that he had a "cudgel" in store for him. "The state has a cudgel in its hands that you use to hit just once, but on the head. We haven't used this cudgel yet. We've just brandished it... [But] the day we get really angry, we won't hesitate to use it." In the same month, Russian prosecutors revived the Aeroflot fraud investigation and Berezovsky was questioned as

910-900: A secret job to assist Boris Yeltsin's reelection. Once in Moscow , they learn Yeltsin is polling at 6% against the Communist Party of the Russian Federation candidate Gennady Zyuganov with the election only a few months away. They decide to vote on whether to stay. Dick Dresner wants to go home, George Gorton and Joe Shumate vote to stay in Moscow. They get the attention of Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana Yumasheva . They then start to do polling, focus groups , messaging, and spin. Yeltsin's poll numbers begin to go up. The three men are unsure who hired them. They do not know whether Yeltsin's allies want him to win. Eventually, Yeltsin wins

980-510: A suspect in the Aeroflot case simply because ORT had "spoken the truth" about the sinking of the submarine Kursk. In early December, his associate Nikolai Glushkov was arrested in Moscow and Berezovsky dropped the proposal to put ORT stake in trust. In 2001, the Russian government made a systematic takeover of privately owned television networks, in the course of which Berezovsky, Gusinsky and Patarkatsishvili lost most of their media holdings, prompting one of them to warn of Russia "turning into

1050-443: A violent struggle. However, the coroner at the inquest into Berezovsky's death later recorded an open verdict . Boris Abramovich Berezovsky was born in 1946, in Moscow , to Abram Markovich Berezovsky (1911–1979), a Jewish civil engineer in construction works, and his wife, Anna Aleksandrovna Gelman (22 November 1923 – 3 September 2013). He studied applied mathematics , receiving his doctorate in 1983. After graduating from

1120-442: A witness. On 7 November 2000, Berezovsky, who was travelling abroad, failed to appear for further questioning and announced that he would not return to Russia because of what he described as "constantly intensifying pressure on me by the authorities and President Putin personally. Essentially," he said, "I'm being forced to choose whether to become a political prisoner or a political emigrant." Berezovsky claimed that Putin had made him

1190-625: The International Foundation for Civil Liberties (IFCL), to "support the abused and the vulnerable in society – prisoners, national minorities and business people" in Russia and criticized Putin's record in the West. Berezovsky launched a concerted campaign to expose alleged misdeeds of Vladimir Putin, from suppressing freedom of speech to committing war crimes in Chechnya. He also accused Russia's FSB security service of staging

1260-658: The Moscow Forestry Engineering Institute in 1968, Berezovsky worked as an engineer from 1969 until 1987, serving as assistant research officer , research officer and finally the head of a department in the Institute of Control Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences . Berezovsky researched optimization and control theory , publishing 16 books and articles between 1975 and 1989. Alexander Khinshtein ( State Duma deputy, member of

1330-643: The Moscow apartment bombings of 1999 in order to help Putin win the presidency. Many of these activities were funded through the New York-based IFCL, directed by Berezovsky's friend Alex Goldfarb. Berezovsky bought a Belgravia flat, the 125-acre Wentworth Park estate near Virginia Water in Surrey, and for a while owned the 172-acre Hascombe Court estate in Godalming . In 2012, he sold his Wentworth Park house. On 9 September 2003, Berezovsky

1400-817: The United Russia faction) claimed that in 1979 Boris Berezovsky was detained by the OBKhSS authorities in Makhachkala ( Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic ) for profiteering. In Khinshtein's opinion, Berezovsky has been a KGB officer since 1979. In 1989, Berezovsky took advantage of the opportunities presented by perestroika to found LogoVAZ with Badri Patarkatsishvili and senior managers from Russian automobile manufacturer AvtoVAZ . LogoVAZ developed software for AvtoVAZ, sold Soviet-made cars and serviced foreign cars. The dealership profited from hyperinflation by taking cars on consignment and paying

1470-519: The economic reconstruction of Chechnya, particularly the construction of a pipeline for transporting Azerbaijani oil. He called upon the Russian business community to contribute to the rebuilding of the republic, revealing his own donation of US$ 1 million (some sources mention US$ 2 million) for a cement factory in Grozny. This payment would come to haunt him years later, when he was accused of funding Chechen terrorists. After his dismissal from

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1540-490: The "Triumph" award, bestowed upon outstanding Russian poets, musicians, artists, directors and ballet dancers. It is reported in the documentary series Captive that Boris Berezovsky, in 1998, was effective in the release of two English aid workers who had been held hostage for ransom in Chechnya for 14 months In the spring of 1998, Berezovsky made an unexpected political comeback, starting with his appointment, in April 1998, to

1610-503: The Berezovsky-Chubais clash a "historical event, in the reality of which I would have never believed, if I had not watched it myself. I saw a fight of the people in the boat floating towards the edge of a waterfall". He argued that the reformist camp never recovered from the wounds sustained in this struggle, setting the political stage for conservative nationalists, and eventually Vladimir Putin . In 1991, Berezovsky founded

1680-679: The British Ambassador to Russia, Sir Andrew Wood , and explained that his former negotiations counterpart, the Islamic militant leader Movladi Udugov , helped arrange the Britons' release. Berezovsky had a phone conversation with Movladi Udugov in the spring of 1999, six months before the beginning of fighting in Dagestan . A transcript of that conversation was leaked to a Moscow tabloid on 10 September 1999 and appeared to mention

1750-659: The Duma. Berezovsky would remain a vocal critic of Putin for the rest of his life. In late 2000, after the Russian Deputy Prosecutor General demanded that Berezovsky appear for questioning, he did not return from abroad and moved to the United Kingdom, which granted him political asylum in 2003. After he moved to Britain, the Russian government took over his television assets, and he divested from other Russian holdings. In Russia, Berezovsky

1820-732: The Family was finding an "electable" successor to Yeltsin to counter the presidential aspirations of the then–prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov , who was leaning to more statist positions. Political battles between the Family and Primakov's camp dominated the two last years of Yeltsin's presidency. In November 1998, in a televised press conference, five officers of the FSB , led by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Litvinenko , revealed an alleged plot by their superiors to assassinate Berezovsky. In April 1999, Russia's Prosecutor General, Yury Skuratov , opened an investigation into embezzlement at Aeroflot and issued an arrest warrant for Berezovsky, who called

1890-651: The Kremlin's inner circle in 1993 through arranging for the publication of Yeltsin's memoirs and befriended Valentin Yumashev , the President's ghost-writer. In January 1996, at the World Economic Forum at Davos , Berezovsky liaised with fellow oligarchs to form an alliance – which later became known as the "Davos Pact" – to bankroll Boris Yeltsin's campaign in the upcoming presidential elections . On his return to Moscow, Berezovsky met and befriended Tatyana Dyachenko , Yeltsin's daughter, According to

1960-634: The Putin camp, using aggressive attack reporting and programming to denigrate and ridicule Putin's rivals, Primakov and Luzhkov , tactics strongly criticized as undue interference with the media. But Unity got a surprisingly high score in the elections, paving the way for Putin's election victory in spring 2000 . Berezovsky's disagreements with Putin became public three weeks into Putin's presidency. On 8 May 2000, Berezovsky and Abramovich were spotted together at Putin's invitation-only inauguration ball in Moscow. However, on 31 May, Berezovsky sharply attacked

2030-437: The Russian presidency in the course of a few short months of 1999 has been attributed to his intimacy with the "Family" as a protege of Berezovsky and Yumashev . By the end of 1999, the Family had persuaded Yeltsin to name Putin his political successor and candidate for the presidency. Berezovsky's acquaintance with Putin dated back to the early 1990s, when the latter, as Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg, helped Logovaz establish

2100-527: The Security Council, Berezovsky vowed to continue his activities in Chechnya as a private individual and maintained contact with Chechen warlords. He was instrumental in the release of 69 hostages, including two Britons, Jon James and Camilla Carr, whom he flew in his private jet to RAF Brize Norton in September 1998. In an interview with Thomas de Waal in 2005, he revealed the involvement of

2170-444: The acquisition. In 1995, he played a key role in a management reshuffle at Aeroflot and participated in its corporatization, with his close associate Nikolai Glushkov becoming Aeroflot's CFO. In January 1998, it was announced that Sibneft would merge with Mikhail Khodorkovsky 's Yukos to create the third-largest oil company in the world. The merger was abandoned five months later amid falling oil prices. Berezovsky entered

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2240-543: The architect of the Khasavyurt peace accord , left Yeltsin's Chechen policy in limbo. On 30 October 1996, in a political bombshell, Yeltsin named Ivan Rybkin as his new National Security Advisor and appointed Berezovsky Deputy Secretary in charge of Chechnya with a mandate to oversee the implementation of the Khasavyurt Accord : that is, the withdrawal of Russian forces, the negotiation of a peace treaty, and

2310-599: The city's governor, Boris Nemtsov , to join Chubais' economic team, which became known as the government of Young Reformers . This was the last concerted political action of the "Davos Pact" (see above). Four months later the group split into two cliques fiercely competing for Yeltsin's favour. The clash was precipitated by the privatization auction of the communication utility Svyazinvest , in which Onexim bank of Chubais' loyalist Vladimir Potanin , backed by George Soros, competed with Gusinsky, allied with Spanish Telefónica . An initially commercial dispute swiftly developed into

2380-451: The constitutional reform proposed by the president, which would give the Kremlin the right to dismiss elected governors. On 17 July 2000, Berezovsky resigned from the Duma, saying he "did not want to be involved in the country's ruin and the restoration of an authoritarian regime". In August, Berezovsky's media attacked Putin for the way he handled the sinking of the Kursk submarine , blaming

2450-593: The country's main television channel, Channel One . In 1997, Forbes estimated Berezovsky's wealth at US$ 3 billion. Berezovsky helped fund Unity , the political party that would form Vladimir Putin 's first parliamentary base, and was elected to the Duma in the 1999 Russian legislative election . However, following the Russian presidential election in March 2000 , Berezovsky went into opposition and resigned from

2520-579: The court rejected. In 2006, Berezovsky sold the Kommersant ("The Businessman") newspaper and his remaining Russian assets. From his new home in the UK, Stanley House , where he and associates including Akhmed Zakayev , Alexander Litvinenko and Alex Goldfarb became known as "the London Circle" of Russian exiles, Berezovsky publicly stated that he was on a mission to bring down Putin "by force" or by bloodless revolution . He established

2590-438: The current political regime and to warn people of what he considered an organized crime syndicate that controlled the President and 70% of all Russian money. The identities of seven bankers are: Other sources, including collective photo and video materials, suggested that Vitaly Malkin ( Rossiysky Kredit ) was part of this group too. From then on, various sources featured different combinations of those eight names to describe

2660-553: The death of 118 sailors on the Kremlin's reluctance to accept foreign help. In September, Berezovsky alleged that the Kremlin had attempted to expropriate his shares in ORT and announced that he would put his stake into a trust to be controlled by prominent intellectuals. In an article in The Washington Post in 2000, Berezovsky argued that in the absence of a strong civil society and middle class it may sometimes be necessary for capitalists "to interfere directly in

2730-456: The end, both sides lost. Berezovsky's media revealed a corrupt scheme whereby a publishing house owned by Onexim Bank paid Chubais and his group hefty advances for a book that was never written. The scandal led to a purge of Chubais' loyalists from the government. Chubais retaliated by persuading Yeltsin to dismiss Boris Berezovsky from the national security council. Berezovsky's service on the Security Council ended on 5 November 1997. Soros called

2800-457: The expert resources + dominating in the information field + blocking the competitor's moves + dominating in mass media + dominating in elites." The main analyst of the NTV TV channel Vsevolod Vilchek also admitted that they actively applied technologies of mass manipulation. Both Dmitry Medvedev and Mikhail Gorbachev have since claimed that Yeltsin's victory was hoaxed. Following the election,

2870-468: The failing Soviet TV Channel 1 . He appointed the popular anchorman and producer Vladislav Listyev as CEO of ORT. Three months later Listyev was assassinated amid a fierce struggle for control of advertising sales. Berezovsky was questioned in the police investigation, among many others, but the killers were never found. Under Berezovsky's stewardship, ORT became a major asset of the reformist camp as they prepared to face Communists and nationalists in

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2940-453: The film, Boris Yeltsin secretly hires three American consultants during his 1996 reelection campaign , when his approval rating was at 6%. With the help of the consultants, Yeltsin won the election six months later. The film claimed to be based on the true story of three American political consultants who worked for the successful reelection campaign of Boris Yeltsin in 1996 . In early 1996, three Republican Party campaign operatives take

3010-585: The first round of elections after forging a tactical alliance with Gen. Alexander Lebed , who finished third. On 3 July, in the runoff vote, he beat the Communist Gennady Zyuganov . His victory was due largely to the support of the TV networks controlled by Gusinsky and Berezovsky (NTV and ORT) and the money from the business elite. The New York Times called Berezovsky the "public spokesman and chief lobbyist for this new elite, which moved from

3080-817: The following years saw a quick demise of most of the seven bankers and the rise of the new generation of "manageable" Russian oligarchy. Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky and Gusinsky turned into personae non gratae in Russia. Khodorkovsky lost his business as well as freedom in 2003, while Berezovsky and Gusinsky left Russia in 2000. Vinogradov died in 2008. On 23 March 2013, Berezovsky was found dead at his home, Titness Park, at Sunninghill , near Ascot in Berkshire. Smolensky still owned significant companies till 2019, but lost his political influence. He died in 2024. Boris Berezovsky (businessman) Boris Abramovich Berezovsky (Russian: Борис Абрамович Березовский ; 23 January 1946 – 23 March 2013), also known as Platon Elenin ,

3150-532: The government of Sergei Stepashin and appointed Putin prime minister, amid reports that Berezovsky had masterminded the reshuffle. Putin's principal opponents were the former Prime Minister Evgeny Primakov and the Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov , backed by the Fatherland-All Russia alliance. To counter this group in the Duma elections of 1999 , Berezovsky was instrumental in the creation, within

3220-534: The idea but reported Udugov's overture to prime-minister Stepashin . "Udugov and Basayev," he asserted, "conspired with Stepashin and Putin to provoke a war to topple Maskhadov ... but the agreement was for the Russian army to stop at the Terek River . However, Putin double-crossed the Chechens and started an all-out war." In March 1997, Berezovsky and Tatyana Dyachenko flew to Nizhniy Novgorod to persuade

3290-603: The investigation politically motivated and orchestrated by Primakov . Nikolai Glushkov , Aeroflot's former General Director, later revealed that conflict with Primakov arose from the irritation that Berezovsky's management team caused in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service , which Primakov headed before becoming prime minister, over firing of thousands of spies, who used Aeroflot as a front organization in Soviet times. The arrest warrant

3360-558: The involvement of American specialists (the latter fact was used as a basis for the comedy film Spinning Boris released in 2003). Known as an extremely "dirty" election campaign both inside and outside of Russia, it was discussed in detail in Gleb Pavlovsky's report President in 1996: Scenarios and Technologies of the Victory published shortly after. As Nezavisimaya Gazeta summarized it, "the formula of victory: attracting

3430-415: The ouster of Korzhakov and other hardliners. On 20 June 1996, Yeltsin fired Korzhakov and two other hawks, leaving the reformers' team in full control of the Kremlin. Firing them was controversial though, as Korzhakov a few days before caught two of Yeltsin's campaign organizers carrying US$ 500,000 cash without invoices out of the presidential administration building. On 16 June 1996, Yeltsin came first in

3500-487: The ownership of the major oil producer Sibneft , against Roman Abramovich , in which he sought over £3 billion in damages. The court concluded that Berezovsky had never been a co-owner of Sibneft. Berezovsky was found dead in his home, Titness Park, at Sunninghill , near Ascot in Berkshire , on 23 March 2013. A post-mortem examination found that his death was consistent with hanging and that there were no signs of

3570-466: The phenomenon of Semibankirschina. That's how Petr Aven , who was close to Berezovsky, describes appearance of the word "Semibankirschina" in his book The age of Berezovsky : "He (Berezovsky) didn’t use this word, but he gave an interview to the Financial Times in which he said that seven businessmen were de facto ruling the country. He named a fairly random list — whomever he could recall at

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3640-554: The political process" of Russia as a counterweight to ex-Communists "who hate democracy and dream of regaining lost positions." Berezovsky took legal action against the journalist Paul Klebnikov , who accused him of various crimes. In October, in an interview in Le Figaro , Putin announced that he would no longer tolerate criticism of the government by media controlled by the oligarchs. "If necessary we will destroy those instruments that allow this blackmail", he declared. Responding to

3710-559: The population, criminalization of businesses and the 1998 Russian financial crisis . This was also the time when the word oligarch grew in popularity, substituting the New Russian nouveau riche term (both with extremely negative subtext). The 1999 saw the sudden rise to power of the unknown FSB officer Vladimir Putin . Boris Berezovsky and his associates claimed that it was him who single-handedly promoted Putin and insisted on his candidature as Prime Minister and President. Yet

3780-652: The position of executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States . He emerged in the centre of a new informal power group – the "Family", a close-knit circle of advisers around Yeltsin, which included Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana and his chief of staff, Yumashev . It was rumoured that no important government appointment could happen without the Family's support. By 1999, the Family also included two of Berezovsky's associates, his former AVVA partner Alexander Voloshin, who replaced Yumashev as Yeltsin's chief of staff, and Roman Abramovich. The principal concern of

3850-502: The preparation of a general election. On 19 December 1996, Berezovsky made headlines by negotiating the release of 21 Russian policeman held hostage by the warlord Salman Raduev amid efforts by radicals from both sides to torpedo peace negotiations. On 12 May 1997, Yeltsin and Maskhadov signed the Russian–Chechen Peace Treaty in the Kremlin. Speaking at a press conference in Moscow, Berezovsky outlined his priorities for

3920-411: The producer at a later date when the money lost much of its value. One of Berezovsky's early endeavors was All-Russia Automobile Alliance (AVVA), a venture fund he formed in 1993 with Alexander Voloshin (Boris Yeltsin's future Chief of Staff) and AvtoVAZ Chairman Vladimir Kadannikov . Berezovsky controlled about 30% of the company, which raised nearly US$ 50 million from small investors through

3990-486: The seven bankers became the main power behind Russian politics and economy. Between 1996 and 2000 they gained control over the most valuable state enterprises in the natural resource and metal sectors and unofficially manipulated Yeltsin and his decisions. According to Boris Berezovsky, they acted through Anatoly Chubais — an architect of privatization in Russia and Yeltsin's right-hand man who granted access to him at any time. All this resulted in further impoverishment of

4060-423: The shadows to respectability in a few short years". On 17 October 1996, Yeltsin dismissed General Alexander Lebed from the position of National Security Advisor amid allegations that he was plotting a coup and secretly mustering a private army. Lebed promptly accused Berezovsky and Gusinsky of engineering his ouster, and formed a coalition with the disgraced General Alexander Korzhakov . The dismissal of Lebed,

4130-601: The space of a few months, of the Unity party, with no ideology other than its support for Putin. Later, he disclosed that the source of Unity's funding, with Putin's knowledge and consent, was Aeroflot . In the 1999 election, Berezovsky campaigned as a Putin loyalist and won a seat in the Duma, representing the North Caucasian republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia . During the Duma election campaign Berezovsky's ORT TV served as an extremely effective propaganda machine for

4200-546: The time. I was listed together with Fridman; there was one representative of each group there". It is generally considered that the group was created in March 1996 when the political consultant Sergey Kurginyan invited a group of thirteen Russian oligarchs to sign the so-called Letter of Thirteen (alternatively named Come Out of the Dead End! ) in an attempt to cancel the Presidential election of 1996 . The manifest

4270-452: The upcoming presidential elections . From 1995 to 1997, through the controversial loans-for-shares privatisation auctions, Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili assisted Roman Abramovich in acquiring control of Sibneft , the sixth-largest Russian oil company, which constituted the bulk of his wealth. In an article in The Washington Post in 2000, Berezovsky revealed that financier George Soros declined an invitation to participate in

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4340-552: The would-be militants' invasion. It has been the subject of much speculation ever since. As Berezovsky explained later in interviews to de Waal and Goldfarb, Udugov proposed to coordinate the Islamists' incursion into Dagestan, so that a limited Russian response would topple the Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov and establish a new Islamic republic, which would be anti-American but friendly to Russia. Berezovsky said that he disliked

4410-486: Was a Russian business oligarch , government official, engineer and mathematician and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences . He had the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation . Berezovsky made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, when the country implemented privatization of state property. He profited from gaining control over assets, including

4480-411: Was dropped a week later, after Berezovsky submitted to questioning by the prosecutors. No charges were brought. Yeltsin sacked Primakov's government shortly thereafter and replaced him with Sergey Stepashin as new prime-minister. Vyacheslav Aminov ( Russian : Вячеслав Аминов ) supported Berezovsky and headed Berezovsky's security service. Vladimir Putin 's meteoric rise from relative obscurity to

4550-555: Was granted refugee status and political asylum by the British Home Office which he, according to Alex Goldfarb, welcomed. On 12 September 2003, judge Timothy Workman of Bow Street Magistrates' Court in central London dropped extradition proceedings against Berezovsky, ruling that it would be pointless to pursue the case as the granting of asylum status to Berezovsky made the proceedings redundant. However, when Berezovsky told Reuters in early February 2006 that he

4620-580: Was killed and he himself was injured. Alexander Litvinenko led the FSB investigation into the incident and linked the crime to the resistance of the Soviet-era AvtoVaz management to Berezovsky's growing influence in the Russian automobile market. Berezovsky's involvement in the Russian media began in December 1994, when he gained control over ORT Television (see Channel One (Russia) ) to replace

4690-438: Was later convicted in absentia of fraud and embezzlement. The first charges had been brought during Primakov 's government in 1999. Despite an Interpol Red Notice for Berezovsky's arrest, Russia repeatedly failed to obtain the extradition of Berezovsky from Britain; the situation became a major point of diplomatic tension between the two countries. In 2012, Berezovsky lost a London High Court case he brought over

4760-656: Was published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta and suggested that two major candidates — Boris Yeltsin and the Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov — should strike a "political compromise" in order to prevent "the economical collapse." It contained eight tips that described the position of business elites. The letter was called "a provocation" by the Communists and thus ignored. After the plan failed, half of those oligarchs formed what became known as Semibankirschina —

4830-526: Was the beginning of their political alliance. According to the Times, Spanish police discovered that on up to five occasions in 1999, Putin had secretly visited a villa in Spain belonging to Berezovsky. In mid-July 1999, the Family dispatched Berezovsky to Biarritz , where Putin was vacationing, to persuade him to accept the position of prime minister and the role of heir apparent . On 9 August, Yeltsin sacked

4900-669: Was working on plans to overthrow Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw warned the London-based Russian tycoon not to plot against the Russian President while living in Britain. His refugee status could be reviewed if he continued to make such remarks. Spinning Boris Spinning Boris is a 2003 American comedy film , directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Jeff Goldblum , Anthony LaPaglia and Liev Schreiber . In

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