If this can be linked to Turkmenistan, and if Mr Berdymuhammedov can resist Russian arm-twisting, then his country could become a big beneficiary of Russia's strained relations with Ukraine and of the uncertainty bedevilling Afghanistan and the Middle East.

ECONOMIST: A modicum of normality breaks out

MFK, the investment-banking arm of a diversified Russian financial and industrial group whose flagship is Uneximbank, Russia's biggest private bank.

ECONOMIST: Russian finance

Last December, in a transaction surreal even by Russian standards, Yuganskneftegaz, Yukos's main production arm, was forcibly sold in another rigged auction, to a front company registered at a provincial grocery shop.

ECONOMIST: The Khodorkovsky case