Financial Times: Putin defends halt to energy asset sell-off

Vladimir Putin has defended his decision to withdraw energy sector assets from an ambitious privatisation programme, insisting that government stakes in leading oil and gas companies should not be sold on to the market at current prices.

It emerged on Thursday that Mr Putin had decreed that state stakes in the energy sector could first be sold to the state-owned investment vehicle Rosneftegaz, controlled by Igor Sechin, further strengthening the clout of the hawkish energy tsar and weakening the control of prime minister Dmitry Medvedev’s new government over the energy sector.  MORE