I'm glad you thought today's Guardian piece was helpful to your case, Craig, because I read it and was about to post something along the lines of "what's the going rate in roubles for a 2 page splash special feature in the Guardian these days, Mr Rusbridger?"
I'm just going off the piece in the printed rag but it struck me that the author, one Ian Cobain, wasn't coming across as a very good investigative reporter. Maybe the hack on the emails side of the story did a better job, but as far as the print edition is concerned, just reporting that Usmanov hotly denies this or denies that – I mean, what do you expect him to do? Yet, given the chance to sue, he doesn't do it.
And the heartwarming tale of a freshly released entrepreneur building up his little plastic bags business before moving into "a number of banking interests" and "acquiring steel, timber and mining concerns". Excuse me, Mr Cobain, but this is no way to portray to the gentle Guardian reader how any Russian oligarch got to be where he got to be. Any oligarch has had to have been, and remain, a totally ruthless gangster, killer and merciless looter, thief and exploiter to get anywhere near the top of the pile in the gangster capitalist state that was 90s Russia.
What's the official story about the death of the Russian journalist Ivan Safronov, Craig? Is he the same guy that you yourself went to Russia to look into the case of? Why wasn't Usmanov asked what he thinks about the deaths of all these journalists, and whether he believes the official explanations? His reply may have helped us to get a better measure of the man.
There is a good link here Mr Murray relating to Putin and his power struggle with the oligarchs.
Hi, my name is Muzaffar, i'm Uzbek and I have a comment on your views about ALisher Usmanov.
Being a BSW(social work) student and most of all, a resident of Uzbekitan, I strongly disagree with most of your points since they're all biased and even fabricated, just think about it – the whole world is just like that, i mean everything is all about business, take the US 4xample; the war in Iraq is all about geopolitical influence and oil in the first place. And DO YOU KNOW that some of the HUGE US corporation leaders have always had ties with MAFIA, they still do, and will always influence US policies overseas, right. Chelsea for example, is now of the finest world clubs due to Russian investments. Every other UK resident wants to greet Mr. Abramamovich in person. As for our country however, we have had tremendous changes by now brought about by foreign investments and particularly due to Alisher Usmonov's policies. The situation is way better since the time you, SIR, were kicked out of this country because of your immoral behaviour with Uzbekistani prostitutes. how can you claim he is a criminal if you can't even prove his guilt, what you said above are just nothing but rumors.
You, Mr. Murray, are the one to be refered to as criminal and charged with SEXUAL DEPRAVITY or even a harrasment since you were hanging out with underage non adult females at Tashkent nightclubs, namely SKY CLUB, while you were working as a British ambassador in Uzbekistan. You organized round table with bunch of idiots whose minds you could easily manipulate with your democracy propoganda and lost your job as a result. why don't you think broadly about Central Asia from now on. P.S. life never stays the same and people like Alisher Usmanov are the ones to make a REAL DIFFERENCE, but never people like you SIR !!!!