Advisor turns on Putin

last updated 8 January 2015

Moscow

A top economic advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin quit this week, saying Putin’s policies were destroying freedom. Andrei Illarionov had already disagreed publicly with his boss over the state takeover of oil giant Yukos, which he called “the swindle of the year.” He complained that Putin was now restoring state control over other major industries that were privatized after the fall of communism. “Six years ago, when I took this position, I was planning to create conditions to increase economic freedom in Russia,” said Illarionov, a respected economist who has an American wife. “The situation has radically changed and there is no longer room to follow a policy of economic freedom.”