RUSSIA - Profile - Victor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin

Made prime minister for the second time on Aug. 23, 1998, Chernomyrdin is said to have become a billionaire. As an interim PM, he will be very cautious in tackling the financial crisis. He confirmed foreign bankers' worst suspicion on Aug. 24 as he proposed rescheduling part of Moscow's debts for up to eight years, instead of the two years promised by Sergei Kiriyenko's government, and his associates hinted that he will bail out the Russian banks which are technically bankrupt. A few days later, however, the rouble fell sharply and Chernomyrdin attacked the Central Bank for not having backed it.

Chernomyrdin no longer trusts his president, as Yeltsin has repeatedly shown his readiness to sacrifice any ally or principle for his own sake (see Yeltsin's profile in OMT). Yeltsin allowed the Kiriyenko government to devalue the rouble only three days after vowing not to do so. He is not counting on Yeltsin's Aug. 24 declaration that Chernomyrdin became his heir to the presidency.

Born in 1939 in the gas-rich Orenburg region of the Urals, Chernomyrdin is not an economist or a technocrat like his predecessors Kiriyenko and Gaidar. Until he became prime minister for the first time, in December 1992, he was an acting minister of fuel and energy and chairman of Gazprom which he founded in 1989 after abolishing the Soviet gas ministry. He continues to oversee Gazprom, with his old friend Rem Vyakhirev having succeeded him as its CEO (see Gas Market Trends).

After he was sacked as PM in March 1998, Chernomyrdin remained at the centre of political affairs and forged new alliances with powerful regional leaders, such as Alexander Lebed who is governor of the vast Siberian province of Krasnoyarsk, and oil-rich Tatarstan's President Mintimer Shaimiev. As he declared his candidacy to the presidential elections in 2000, he deepened his alliance with the oligarchs, or "robber barons", some of whom having built up empires out of state assets they purchased "for a song". They include the petroleum lobby led by Gazprom CEO Vyakhirev and LUKoil CEO Vagit Alekperov, and a plutocracy of bankers and business tycoons led by shadowy Kremlin advisor Boris Berezovsky, who control some of Russia's big oil companies like Sibneft of Berezovsky. The latter include Mikhail Khodorkovsky who heads Bank Menatep and controls Yukos, Vladimir Potanin who heads Uneximbank and controls Sidanco, and Vladimir Gussinsky who runs the Most empire including Most Bank.