The Wall Street Journal’s ($) Holman Jenkins, Jr. finally weighs in on the Russian government’s heavy-handed takeover of OAO Yukos, and he correctly notes that the Yukos case signifies the end of any hope that Russian president Vladimir Putin will lead the country toward a European-style social democracy with an economy based on at least reasonably free markets:

Foreign investors puzzle over Mr. Putin and his seeming ineptitude at making Russia into Thailand writ large, a gracious and dutiful partner for trade and finance. But perhaps Mr. Putin never really had “reform” in mind. Western imaginations didn’t quite grasp that Saddam Hussein fancied himself a conqueror, an empire builder, a man of destiny (and was content to limit his country’s economic potential to the oil under his direct control). Western leaders and investors may be suffering from a similar myopia when it comes to Mr. Putin.

Mr. Jenkins goes on to point out that, despite Mr. Putin’s tactics, Western investors continue to line up to invest in various Russian business ventures. That’s true, but my sense is that it is a relative trickle in comparison to what the West would be willing to invest in Russia but for the Russian government’s takeover tactics. Until that changes, Russian economic development will continue to lag far behind the West.
Along similar lines, Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young — author of Growing Up in Moscow: Memories of a Soviet Girlhood (Ticknor & Field, 1989)– provides this Reason Online article on Mr. Putin and the implications of his grip on the Russian government for the West.