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Moscow, Wednesday, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs declared that the members of the Union recognize that Gazprom’s legal initiatives to recuperate its loans to Gazprom are fully justified.
According to the newspaper Kommersant Daily, the list of attendees at the meeting of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs included almost all the leading businessmen who met with president Putin in the Kremlin on January 24th. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the chief of Yukos oil, currently in the USA, and Viktor Vekselberg, the chief of the Siberian Urals Aluminium, who according to his Moscow office is on a business trip “somewhere beyond the Urals,” were noticeable absentees.
The leading entrepreneurs and industrialists again produced a joint declaration concerning the Media- Most affaire.
The Union’s first declaration on the Media-Most affaire came exactly eight months ago on June 14th when the founder and chief of Media-Most Vladimir Gusinsky was being held in custody in the Butyrka detention jail, Moscow.
The draft of the latest declaration by the entrepreneurs’ union was drawn up on Monday February 12th and signed by the chief of Alfabank Petr Aven. The draft was then sent to all members of the union who then made substantial changes to the document.
According to certain sources, Mikhail Komissar, the chief of Interfax news agency and former deputy of the presidential administration proofread the document which the union unanimously endorsed Wednesday without any amendments.
What was striking about Wednesday’s declaration was the entrepreneurs’ distinct change of approach to the Gusinsky affaire since their last declaration back in June 2000. The declaration contains phrases seemingly designed to appease the Kremlin.
“Everybody, including even the freest mass media outlets, must pay their debts.” The entrepreneurs then stress that Gazprom Media’s lawsuits against Media Most are “understandable and justified.”
The union’s criticism of Media Most went further than castigating the Most’s financial dealings.
“Independent television does not mean offensive behaviour. Unfortunately, washing dirty linen in public has long since become the norm for media outlets which traditionally are not considered to be tabloid. NTV and the printed editions under Vladimir Gusinsky’s control are no exception.”
In the wake of the entrepreneurs union’s criticism, not only of Gusinsky’s financial dealings, but of Media Most outlets’ journalistic ethics, it became know Thursday that Boris Berezovky has begun transferring a working loan of $50 million to the television company NTV.
"NTV has already received part of this money," ‘informed sources’ were quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
In addition, Berezovsky's representatives have reportedly entered into negotiations with a Western bank on taking over the Media-MOST's holding's debts of $262 million, the sources said, but admitted that "this is not a quick process."
Official Media-MOST spokesman Dmitri Ostalsky has neither denied nor confirmed the reports of NTV receiving money from Berezovsky.
Wednesday’s declaration by the union of entrepreneurs is tantamount to a statement that they categorically refuse to support Gusinsky. Thus the media magnet is left with only one ally amongst Russia’s oligarchs: Boris Berezovsky.
15 ФЕВРАЛЯ 16:39
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