Yukos oil affair has damaged Russia, says Putin adviser

President Vladimir Putin's economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, called the attack on the Yukos oil company the most important event in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union, warning that the nine-year sentence for its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was 'only the beginning', 2 June 2005. Illarionov fiercely criticised the legal process against Khodorkovsky, and warned against the government's plans for re-nationalisation of oil and gas assets, such as the increase of the state's stake in Gazprom and the acquisition by state-owned Rosneft of Yukos's main production arm.