Putin faces growing crisis over oil shares seizure

RUSSIA’S prime minister said yesterday he was deeply concerned by the seizure of shares of oil giant YUKOS — the closest any top official has come to publicly criticising the Kremlin’s handling of the crisis.

“I will refrain from any assessment but my concern is great,” Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said, a day after prosecutors froze a major stake in oil giant YUKOS and a top presidential aide quit in protest.

It has handed President Vladimir Putin his biggest political and economic crisis in three years in power and raised fears in the West over the future of economic reform.