An Oligarch's Arrest Rattles Russia's Business Community

When Russian billionaire Vladimir Evtushenkov was placed under house arrest on Sept. 16, the case drew immediate comparisons with that of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil magnate who spent a decade behind bars after challenging President Vladimir Putin’s authority.

From the perspective of Russia’s business community, though, the Evtushenkov case looks a lot scarier. No one was surprised by the arrest of Khodorkovsky, who had ignored repeated Kremlin warnings that oligarchs should stay out of politics. But Evtushenkov, head of London-listed investment company AFK Sistema, was careful to play by the Kremlin’s rules as he amassed an estimated $7 billion fortune. “You have to keep business and politics separate,” he told the magazine Forbes Russia in a 2010 interview.