Politics

A Fallen Russia Oligarch Sends Warning to Rest of Putin Insiders

He was one of the most powerful men in Russia for a decade, an old pal of the president who oversaw a million workers and a rail network spanning 11 time zones.

But then Vladimir Yakunin was suddenly out, ending a career that included a stint as an intelligence officer at the United Nations in New York during the Cold War. Now Yakunin, 67, has some parting advice for the remaining members of what he dismissed as Putin’s “so-called inner circle”: know your place.

“This circle will continue to rotate,” Yakunin said in his private office in Moscow during a 90-minute interview. Putin has yet to form a stable “ruling class like Russia had during czarist times,” the former head of state-owned Russian Railways JSC said.