Tillerson may have wagged his finger about Russia’s lax relationship to rule of law eight years ago, but he soon learned that that wasn’t the way to improve the business climate for his company in Russia, especially in a Russia that was quickly repositioning itself as a pivotal player on the world stage — becoming the kind of nation that could force the end of a civil war in Syria and help throw an election in the United States. The way to succeed in Russia was to become personally close to Putin and Sechin.
What does that kind of friendship mean? Past experience suggests it is not a relationship of equals. It means that, at the drop of a hat, the Kremlin might discover serious environmental violations at your Sakhalin plant and drive you out of the country, as it did to Royal Dutch Shell, and then give the lucrative access to a better, domestic ally. It might decide to harass you with lawsuits to force you out, as it did to BP. And it might even throw you in jail, as it did to powerful Russian oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov in order to take a small oil company, Bashneft, away from you and give it to Sechin. Putin would even arrest his largely popular economics minister, as he did on November 15, to help Sechin retain it.
The lesson of Putin’s 16-year tenure is a lesson that all businesspeople, foreign and domestic, have learned: to do business in Russia, you have to be on good, personal terms with Putin and Sechin. And you have to understand that those two gatekeepers to Russia’s riches are fickle and sadistic, and, as former KGB operatives, know little of real friendship.
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