The pension fund of the Russian oil giant, Lukoil, a minority shareholder in TV-6 (owned by a discredited and self-exiled Yeltsin-era oligarch, Boris Berezovsky), this week forced the closure of this television station on legal grounds. Gazprom (Russia's natural gas monopoly) has done the same to another television station, NTV, last year (and then proceeded to expropriate it from its owner, Vladimir Gusinsky). Gazprom is forced to sell natural gas to Russian consumers at 10% the world price and to turn a blind eye to debts owed it by Kremlin favorites. Both Lukoil and Gazprom are, therefore, used by the Kremlin as instruments of domestic policy. But Russian energy companies are also used as instruments of foreign policy. A few examples: Russia has resumed oil drilling and exploration in war ravaged Chechnya. About 230 million rubles have been transferred to the federal Ministry of Energy. A new refinery is in the works. Russia lately signed a production agreement to develop oilfields in central Sudan in return for Sudanese arms purchases. Armenia owes Itera, a Florida based, Gazprom related, oil concern, $35 million. Itera has agreed to postpone its planned reduction in gas supplies to the struggling republic to February 11. Last month, President Putin called for the establishment of a "Eurasian alliance of gas producers" - probably to counter growing American presence, both economic and military, in Central Asia and the much disputed oil rich Caspian basin. The countries of Central Asia have done their best to construct alternative oil pipelines (through China, Turkey, or Iran) in order to reduce their dependence on Russian oil transportation infrastructure. These efforts largely failed (a new $4 billion pipeline from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea through Russian territory has just been inaugurated) and Russia is now on a charm offensive. Its PR efforts are characteristically coupled with extortion. Gazprom owns the pipelines. Russia exports 7 trillion cubic feet of gas a year - six times the combined output of all other regional producers put together. Gazprom actually competes with its own clients, the pipelines' users, in export markets. It is owed money by all these countries and is not above leveraging it to political or economic gain. Lukoil is heavily invested in exploration for new oil fields in Iraq, Algeria, Sudan, and Libya. Russian debts to the Czech Republic, worth $2.5 billion in face value, have just been bought by UES, the Russian electricity monopoly, for a fraction of their value and through an offshore intermediary. UES then transferred the notes to the Russian government against the writing off of $1.35 billion in UES debts to the federal budget. The Russians claim that Paris Club rules have ruled out a direct transaction between Russia (a member of the Club) and the Czech Republic (not a member).