The curtain finally fell on the shattered Yukos oil empire today, with a mysterious auction providing a dramatic conclusion to the politically charged, four-year demise of the company that was once Russia’s biggest oil producer.

The plot thickens over the mysterious backroom deals that have quietly handed the Kremlin control of the embattled Yukos oil giant’s most important production unit – an apparently secret, no-bid sale to Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft.

Russia has sold the heart of the Yukos oil empire in an auction reminiscent of the country’s notorious privatisations of the 1990s, analysts said, as the former CEO of the company offered bitter season’s greetings to the Kremlin from behind bars.

A previously unknown Russian company called BaikalFinansGroup bought the core production unit of oil giant Yukos at auction for €7bn today, gaining control of one of Russia’s most prized oil assets for a fraction of what Yukos executives say it is worth.

Russia’s obscure Baikalfinansgroup bought Yukos’ core production unit at auction for $9.3bn (€7bn) today, gaining control of one of Russia’s most prized oil assets.