Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center

The Russian billionaire bidding to buy The Independent newspaper is poised to gain a massive cash injection from the Kremlin in a deal personally sanctioned by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Alexander Lebedev, who bought London's Evening Standard for £1 a year ago, is selling his stakes in the airline Aeroflot and in Russia's largest aircraft leasing corporation back to the Government.

The Times reports that the deals would earn him more than £450 million. Lebedev said that the cash was destined for new projects in Russia and that none would be spent on his burgeoning newspaper interests in Britain. However, the financial boost casts a revealing new light on the relationship between the Kremlin and a man usually viewed as one of its most outspoken critics.

In a comment for Radio Liberty, Robert Coalson finds The Times' article is full of ironies; it seems too fantastic to suggest that Putin could have planned this, but he definitely kept his eyes open for opportunities. Coalson refutes The Times' suggestion that Lebedev is "one of [the Kremlin's] most outspoken critics."

He looks back to one-time oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who in the 1990s turned political connection into wealth, but when Putin could no longer tolerate Berezovsky's combination of political ruthlessness and economic might, he was forced to give up most of his assets and flee to London. One of the assets Berezovsky left behind was, ironically, Aeroflot. That company was at the heart of the first set of criminal charges against him. He jokes that if Lebedev is a "Trojan horse," then it must be fun for Putin to see the money for subverting the British press coming from the renationalization of one of the flagship companies of his old nemesis Berezovsky.