Soros warns of Russian state

RUSSIAN businessmen may have to take their orders from the state after the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the nation’s richest tycoon, billionaire financier George Soros was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

“Russia may now be entering a phase of state capitalism, where all the owners of capital realise that they are dependent on the state,” Soros told Yevgeny Kiselyev editor of Moskovsky Novosti, a weekly acquired recently by Khodorkovsky.

Khodorkovsky, former head of Russian oil major YUKOS, was arrested at gunpoint 10 days ago and charged on seven counts of fraud and tax evasion.