Top Russian politician under death threat

Death threats have acquired a grim plausibility in post-Soviet Russia, where hundreds of business executives have been killed in the scramble for the nation's spoils. So the Kremlin had no choice yesterday but to sharply tighten security around one of their most powerful and least popular officials, Anatoly Chubais. Aides to Mr Chubais, one of the top three in the Yeltsin administration, said that the Russian security services had received a tip-off of a possible plot to kill him.

The First Deputy Prime Minister has long been a hate-figure for millions of Russians, who blame him for bungling the privatisation of much of the Soviet Union's industries during the early 1990s. But he is also at the centre of a new conflict - a split within the ranks of the media barons and business moguls who rallied around President Boris Yeltsin last year but are now scrambling for their share of booty in the latest round of state sell-offs. This erupted into the open in July, with the sale of a stake in the giant state telecoms holding company, Svyazivest. It went to the highest bidder - a consortium led by Vladimir Potanin, a multi- millionaire banker. But some of the losers were furious. Leading the outcry was Boris Berezovsky, a media mogul who bankrolled Mr Yeltsin's election campaign.

This weekend, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which is part of his business empire, launched an attack on Mr Chubais, accusing him of Lenin-like despotism.

- Phil Reeves