Russian business community upset with Putin not willing to talk

Vice President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Igor Yurgens expressed his regret that President Vladimir Putin had rejected a dialogue with the business community. "We feel sorry that Vladimir Putin rejected a dialogue with the Russian business community," Yurgens stated at a session of the Union's crisis committee as well as the "Opora Rossii" (Russia's Support) and "Delovaya Rossiya" (Business Russia) organizations today. According to him, with the arrest of YUKOS Head Mikhail Khodorkovsky public organizations will hardly be able to maintain the investment attractive image of Russia. "All we can do here is to wait for fair and open trials related to the YUKOS company, its employees and shareholders. But it may also happen so that we won't see any at all," Yurgens emphasized. The Vice President of the Union expressed his belief that the situation with Khodorkovsky's arrest wouldn't serve as a signal of "the beginning of getting things straightened out."

It is worth mentioning that Russian President Vladimir Putin declared at a Cabinet meeting earlier today that he wouldn't have a meeting with officials of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and politicians over the "YUKOS case." "There won't be any meetings or any bargaining regarding activities of law-enforcement institutions, unless what they had done was not within Russian law," the President noted.