Russia: Calls for Berezovsky's extradition - timeline
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- January 2007. Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika tells UK detectives that they are not allowed to return to Russia to question witnesses in connection with the murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko unless the UK allows Russian detectives to interview more than 100 Russians living in the UK.
- December 2006. Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika implies that Russia's co-operation in the investigation into the murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko is dependent upon the extradition of Berezovsky and Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev.
- November 2006. Former Russian security service officer Aleksandr Litvinenko, 43, dies in a London hospital, having been poisoned by the radioactive substance polonium-212.
- November 2006. There is much speculation in the Russian media about who might have caused Aleksandr Litvinenko's death, including a theory suggesting that Berezovsky was attempting to discredit President Putin.
- October 2006 Anna Politkovskaya, one of the most widely respected journalists in Russia, who was critical of the Russian presidency and particularly its policy in Chechnya, is murdered in Moscow.
- January 2006. The Supreme Court in Latvia rejects an appeal by Boris Berezovsky against the government's decision in October 2005 to declare him persona non grata.
- October 2005. Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga announces that Boris Berezovsky has been declared persona non grata in Latvia.
- October 2004. The Kommersant newspaper, formerly owned by Boris Berezovsky, is issued with a demand for 321 million roubles after it lost a case brought by Alfa Bank for defamation.
- July 2004. The editor of the Russian edition of Forbes Magazine, Paul Klebnikov, who had in 2000 published a book entitled Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the looting of Russia, is assassinated in Moscow in what appears to be a contract killing.
- February 2004. A member of the Liberal Russia party faction supported by Boris Berezovsky claims to have been drugged and kidnapped after being lured to Kiev by the promise of negotiations with Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov.
- October 2003. Berezovsky’s personal fortune is estimated at US$3 billion; the High Court in London awards Berezovsky £10,000 in libel damages from the publishers of Eurobusiness magazine who acknowledged that an article about him, called "The Age of the Robber Barons", had made unfounded allegations.
- September 2003. Berezovsky pays for full page advertisements, appearing in several leading US and UK newspapers, warning US President George W. Bush not to trust "his friend Vladimir Putin" and alleging serious infringements in Russia of human rights and democratic values; the UK Home Office grants Berezovsky political asylum; Russia's request for Berezovsky's extradition from the UK on charges of fraud is rejected.
- July 2003. The prosecutor general charges two leaders of the Liberal Russia party faction loyal to Boris Berezovsky with the murder in April of Sergei Yushchenkov, co-chairman of the official anti-Berezovsky Liberal Russia party.
- May 2003. Boris Berezovsky maintains that the bombings of three apartment buildings in 1999, which killed nearly 300 people in Moscow, Buynaksk, and Volgodonsk and prompted the second Russian invasion of Chechnya, had been orchestrated by the authorities to provide an excuse for the invasion of Chechnya.
- April 2003. Russian analysts suggest that those people who wanted to accelerate the extradition of Berezovsky from the UK could have had a motive for the assassination of prominent Russian politician Sergei Yushchenkov.
- March 2003. Berezovsky is arrested in the UK at the request of the Russian authorities.
- October 2002. The Liberal Russia political party expels Berezovsky, one of its founding members, over his links with the communist and nationalist opposition; a court in Moscow issues an arrest warrant for Berezovsky in connection with the large-scale illegal acquisition of cars, and the purchase of shares in media outlets with the proceeds.
- September 2002. Berezovsky offers to spend up to US$100 million to fund Liberal Russia’s attempts to be registered as a political party.
- August 2002. Vladimir Golovlyov, the co-chairman of the opposition Liberal Russia founded by Berezovsky, is assassinated.
- June 2002. Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), is convicted in absentia of abuse of office and given a suspended sentence of three-and-a-half years for accusing the FSB of, amongst other things, trying to assassinate Berezovsky.
- March 2002. Berezovsky accuses the Russian authorities of having ordered the series of bomb attacks in Russia in September 1999 that led to 293 civilian deaths and prompted the Russian invasion of Chechnya.
- January 2002. Berezovsky says that he has allocated a grant of US$1.2 million to help journalists from TV-6, Russia's last remaining independent television station with national coverage which went off the air on Jan. 21.
- November 2001. Berezovsky says that attempts to close TV-6, of which he is a majority shareholder, is politically inspired.
- October 2001. A warrant for Berezovsky's arrest is issued to coincide with the questioning of Railways Minister Nikolai Aksyonenko, who is charged with abuse of office over the misappropriation of US$500 million in state funds.
- June 2001. Vitaly Tretyakov, the founder and editor-in-chief of Nezavisimaia gazeta since 1990, says that he is resigning over "political differences" with Boris Berezovsky, the newspaper's main shareholder since 1995.
- May 2001. Berezovsky announces that he is preparing to finance a new political party to oppose President Vladimir Putin.
- February 2001. Boris Berezovsky sells his package of 49 per cent of shares in the ORT (Russian Public Television) network.
- November 2000. A warrant for the arrest of Berezovsky is issued after he fails to return to Russia from abroad to answer a summons for questioning in two unrelated cases of criminal business dealings.
- September 2000. Concerns arise that the Russian presidency is making a concerted effort to increase control over Russia's mass media, aiming particularly at the media empires of Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky.
- July 2000. President Vladimir Putin continues his campaign to reassert central control over the various branches of the Russian state by authorising investigations into the affairs of the "oligarchs", who had dominated the latter years of the administration of his predecessor as Russian President, Boris Yeltsin; Berezovsky resigns his seat in the State Duma, thereby relinquishing his immunity from prosecution.
- June 2000. Vladimir Gusinsky, the owner of the Media-Most business empire, is arrested and imprisoned in Moscow on allegations of fraud, before being released after an international outcry and a protest letter from 17 of Russia's influential "oligarchs", but forbidden to leave Moscow, having been formally charged with large-scale embezzlement.
- May 2000. The formal inauguration of new Russian President Vladimir Putin takes place at a ceremony in the Kremlin; Berezovsky’s Kommersant-Daily newspaper publishes what it claims is a policy document leaked from the presidential administration, proposing the use of the Federal Security Service (FSB) to "control the political process" and silence opposition media.
- April 2000. Russian NTV reports suggest that a struggle for posts in the new government to be led by Vladimir Putin is being waged between the "oligarchs", particularly Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, and the "St Petersburg liberals", who had become close to Putin during his tenure as Deputy Mayor of St Petersburg.
- December 1999. In legislative elections Berezoksky wins a seat in the Duma from a single-mandate constituency in the North Caucasus.
- November 1999. Criminal charges brought against Berezovsky for alleged money laundering are dropped amidst accusations that the prosecutor general's office had been pressured into abandoning the case.
- September 1999. A spate of bomb explosions in Russia kill 293 people; it is suggested that Boris Berezovsky had been involved in the formation of the Unity political party.
- August 1999. President Boris Yeltsin dismisses his fourth government in 17 months and nominates Vladimir Putin, the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Secretary of the Security Council, as both Russia's prime minister-designate and as his preferred successor as Russian president.
- April 1999. Berezovsky is arrested on charges of money laundering.
- March 1999. Berezovsky is dismissed by President Boris Yeltsin as the executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
- January 1999. Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov announces that he is stepping up a campaign against the so-called "oligarchs".
- November 1998. Berezovsky is embroiled in corruption allegations, to which he responds by repeating earlier accusations that the FSB (Russian Security Service) is masterminding assassination attempts against him; documents are published apparently proving that in 1994 Berezovsky, and other businessmen who had acquired 26 per cent of state-owned shares in the influential Russian television company, ORT, had given President Boris Yeltsin power of attorney over the shares.
- March 1998. The Daily Telegraph reports that Berezovsky had played an important role in the unexpected release of two UK aid workers in Chechnya, together with two Russian soldiers who had also been held prisoner in the separatist republic.
- December 1997. The seizure of assets belonging to two refineries, including Omsk Oil Refinery, owned by Sibneft, which was controlled by the Berezovsky, in order to pay their tax debts, is delayed; the Nezavisimaya gazeta newspaper, financed by Berezovsky, reveals that Russia had received letters from the IMF and World Bank demanding that the Russian government act against tax debts in return for forthcoming loans.
- November 1997. First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais loses his post as Finance Minister as a result of suspicions concerning a large advance payment made to him and his associates ostensibly for their contributions to a book about Russia's privatisation process; the scandal is widely linked to the dismissal of Berezovsky from his post as deputy secretary of the security Council.
- September 1997. President Boris Yeltsin meets leading Russian bankers in an attempt to halt the internecine quarrels between them over the privatisation of Russia's state-owned assets.
- August 1997. The auction of the Russian government's 38 per cent stake in the Norilsk Nickel mining group (which controlled 35 per cent of the world's nickel reserves) was won by Svift, a closed joint-stock company affiliated to the Oneximbank financial empire, which was controlled by a former First Deputy Prime Minister, Vladimir Potanin.
- July 1997. The auction of Russian telecommunications company Svyazinvest is won by a consortium including Oneximbank; the losing bid comes from a group said to have links with Berezovsky.
- April 1997. A team of young reformers brought into key government positions during March formulate a series of measures designed to restructure Russia's huge power and transport monopolies.
- October 1996. After being dismissed from his posts as secretary of the security council and presidential national security adviser, Gen. Aleksandr Lebed claims that Berezovsky had personally threatened him for forging a peace agreement in Chechenya, saying that the deal had harmed his business interests.
- December 1991. The Soviet Union is replaced by a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), grouping 11 of the former constituent republics of the Union (but not Georgia) in a loose alliance, without central governing bodies. The President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, resigns.
- December 1991. Russia's privatisation programme is outlined at a press conference, including plans for rapid privatisation, which is intended to mitigate the anticipated steep price rises after price liberalisation, by introducing competition in the conditions of mainly monopoly production.
