Mr Deripaska was once the richest man in Russia and is now reported to be the country's 14th-wealthiest individual.

BBC: Russia giant Rusal raided in tax probe

But somewhere in the thick of it was Boris Berezovsky, reputedly the richest man in Russia, who cast himself afterwards as Mr Chubais's nemesis.

ECONOMIST: The humbling of Chubais | The

In 2003-2005, when the wealthiest man in Russia and one of the richest people in the world, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, decided to get involved into politics, he got sent down on charges of embezzlement and tax evasion instead, and locked up for nine years.

FORBES: Russia's Rich Sponsor Opposition, This Time Officially

The conflict between real modernisation and the vested interests of this bureaucracy is summed up in the fate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man and now its most famous political prisoner.

ECONOMIST: Modernising Russia

In 2003, the authorities arrested Yukos oil company chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then Russia's richest man, for what many believe to have been his political threat to Putin.

NPR: Russia Under Putin: Echoes of the Soviet Era