ABSTRACT
This final chapter concludes the book with a postscript in two parts. The first section charts some of the new directions taken by the larger business groups in the years following the Yukos events: there was a pressing need in Russia, post-Yukos, to get on with the business of ‘managing business’. During the Medvedev presidency (2008–2012) and subsequently, there was considerable involvement on the part of business in fighting corruption and asset-grabbing by Russian officialdom (reiderstvo) as well as greater advocacy efforts both on the legislative front and in the resolution of existing grievances. The appointment of an official ‘business ombudsman’ represented an implicit recognition by the Kremlin that Russia’s systemic corruption was of increasing concern. In the Yukos saga, following protracted private negotiations involving German officials, Khodorkovsky was pardoned by Putin and released in December 2013, along with Lebedev, both men having spent over a decade in prison. This concluding section, a kind of coda unifying the various themes and players interwoven into this book, offers some observations on the negotiations and conditions pertaining to Khodorkovsky’s release, his exile from Russia, and his reflections on past events, on particular individuals, and on Russia’s political future.
