Investigators alleged that Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev was trying to extort a $2 million bribe from Rosneft in exchange for removing his opposition to its already-completed deal to buy the government’s 50% stake in regional producer Bashneft.

The minister was reportedly detained by the FSB just hours after visiting Rosneft’s Moscow headquarters. Yet whatever the view outside Russia, many at home see Ulyukayev’s woes as being more about him having got on the wrong side of Rosneft’s chief executive Igor Sechin by opposing the company’s acquisition of the government’s Bashneft stake, arguing that it should have been sold to a private company.

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