Efforts to liberalise Russia’s economy have stalled for lack of government support, and now mobsters are trying to take control.  Last month, Andrei Kozlov, deputy chairman of Russia's central bank, was assassinated.  He had fought against criminal infiltration of Russia’s financial system and shut down corrupt banks.  Some ruthless folks apparently didn’t like that.

Then they took out a businessman who was in their way. 

Last weekend, with Russia's business community still buzzing over Kozlov's unsolved murder, Enver Ziganshin, the chief engineer for oil company Rusia Petroleum, was found dead at his country home. He had been shot three times, including once in the head.

Experts say these are just the latest in an escalating war for control of Russia's economy — one that pits organized crime against increasingly isolated and vulnerable reformers trying to bring the country's corporate sector into the modern age.

Instead of implementing serious economic reform, Russia seems to be returning to the bad old days of authoritarianism at home and intimidation abroad.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, has reverted to its old tactics of bullying neighbours, as it did with Ukraine last winter, and more recently with Georgia. Russia has been throwing its weight around through state-controlled oil and gas companies, renegotiating contracts with major oil companies like Shell, and raising alarm among a number of foreign governments, including Japan, Britain and the United States.

If Russia does not open up its economy, President Vladimir Putin will never fulfill his ambition of joining the World Trade Organisation.  But before that can happen, assassination of government officials and businessmen will have to be stopped and the rule of law restored.

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