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Putin’s Assertive Diplomacy Is Seldom Challenged
MOSCOW, Dec. 26 — Inside the Kremlin last week, the executives of three major international companies — Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsubishi and Mitsui — heaped praise on the man whose government had effectively forced them to cede control of the world’s largest combined oil and natural gas project.

President Vladimir V. Putin meeting with leaders of Mitsubishi, Royal Dutch Shell and Mitsui on an oil and gas deal.
“Thank you very much for your support,” Shell’s chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, told President Vladimir V. Putin during a meeting that ended a six-month regulatory assault on the project, Sakhalin II, but only after the companies surrendered control of it to the state energy giant, Gazprom. “This was a historic occasion.”

It was also a telling one, with lessons that extend beyond energy policy to such disparate matters as the killings of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former K.G.B. agent in London, and Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent journalist.
Posted by: .com 2006-12-27
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=176237