Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:00 AM ET (original story...)
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Anatoly Chubais, head of Russia's state power monopoly, survived an assassination attempt on Thursday by assailants who detonated a roadside bomb and sprayed his convoy with automatic gunfire.
The 49-year-old Chubais, one of Russia's best-known figures, came to prominence as the architect of post-Soviet economic reforms under which two dozen "oligarchs" acquired vast wealth while ordinary people suffered a huge slump in living standards.
Chubais is now chief executive of Unified Energy System, and the prime mover behind reforms to introduce competition to the power sector of the world's largest country.
He told a press briefing he had been aware of a plan to kill him, but refused to say who he thought was behind the attack.
"I have an idea of who could have taken out a contract on me," a shaken but defiant Chubais said from the safety of UES headquarters in Moscow.
"We had reason to believe something like this might happen." Chubais was on his way to work from his country home when a roadside bomb rocked his two-car cortege and gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons. His armored BMW fled the scene despite being hit in the windshield, hood and front tire.
Security guards traveling in a separate car returned fire at two hitmen, who escaped into the surrounding woods. Police said they had found a green Saab they believe was used as a getaway car by the assailants.
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had called Chubais to enquire about his health and the circumstances of the attack.
YOUNG REFORMER
Chubais, who masterminded former President Boris Yeltsin's re-election in 1996, quit the Kremlin in 1998 to head Russia's seventh-largest company, with revenues of $21.6 billion and market capitalization of $12.6 billion.
Before that, the tough-talking economist was a leading member of the "young reformers" close to former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar and architect of a 1990s privatization drive which led to vast wealth being concentrated in very few hands
Critics accused Chubais of launching an era of "wild capitalism" when gangland-style killings became a widely used method to acquire control of businesses.
Only last November, Chubais told a newspaper he had been the target of three assassination attempts. "I was hated because I 'had sold Russia'," he said at the time.
POLITICAL ATTACK
The Union of the Right-Wing Forces -- Chubais's political party, which lost its seats in parliament in 2003 and accuses Putin of undermining democracy -- labeled the attack "a political crime."
"Chubais is a public figure," said Boris Nemtsov, an ally.
"For me it is completely obvious this assassination attempt has a political character and is not connected to the reforms of UES."
UES shares did not react to the attack, rising 0.8 percent.
Analysts say transforming UES from Soviet-era monolith into a functioning power market capable of promoting Russia's economic development cannot happen without Chubais, who vowed to press ahead with his power reform project.
"Everything that I have done -- in reforming the country's power sector, and in uniting the country's democratic parties -- I will continue doing, with twice the strength," he said.
Commentators said that, whoever was behind the attack, it underscored Russia's persisting instability.
"The whole thing is so scary," said David Herne, a portfolio investor in Russia's power industry where he runs investments worth around $100 million. "It shows that pushing through change in this country is still dangerous for your life."
