Economic growth and increased investment have played a bad joke on many Russian entrepreneurs. The "ugly ducklings" of Russian business that no one wanted have begun turning a profit and have become tasty morsels in the latest carve-up of the assets pie.

It looks like the same fate awaits Russia itself. Two years ago, President Vladimir Putin took the helm of a demoralized and insolvent country ravaged by economic and political crises and hit by a wave of terrorism.

One can debate Putin's role in getting Russia back on its feet, but the recovery is real. Yesterday's ugly duckling has become today's tasty morsel. Pulled from the mud, the Russian crown is now shining in the sun.

The way many politicians now see it, Putin has done his job, just like former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who, once he'd served his purpose in stabilizing the country after the financial crisis, had to step down.

The first signals of this have come from Boris Berezovsky, one of those immensely energetic people who would find it easier to become a corpse than a pensioner. Having got rid of Vitaly Tretyakov as editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Berezovsky decisively set about turning the newspaper into a "media-hitman," a sort of "collective Dorenko." By firing Tretyakov, Berezovsky was effectively declaring all-out war on Putin.

The attack is planned for fall, by which time all the right factors would be in place. As well as Putin's chekist background, potential failure of the operation to raise the Kursk and intensification of the war in Chechnya, by fall Berezovsky's plans would be strengthened by economic factors.

Berezovsky has got the reformers with Anatoly Chubais and German Gref at their head to do the dirty work for him in destabilizing the Russian economy. Increase in energy prices and the power cuts that will follow (since people don't have any money to pay) will make Putin increasingly less popular with the public, governors and entrepreneurs. Berezovsky is good at managing the "spontaneous wrath of the workers" – it's enough to remember the "railways war" of 1998 that was linked with his name.

Chubais could also be playing his own game. His supporters from the Union of Right Forces (SPS) have already spoken of a Chubais victory in the 2004 presidential elections. In any event, NTV, now controlled by Chubais' old partners Alfred Kokh and Boris Jordan, is busy taking stabs at Putin more effectively and professionally than in Vladimir Gusinsky's time.

Added to this are the "new oligarchs" – big businessmen who have joined the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and control the government's economic policy. In defense of their own selfish aims, they refuse to let the government carry out an antimonopoly policy (they are all monopolists themselves) and take measures to protect property (which would make it harder for them to grab assets).

As a result, Russian capital doesn't get put to use at home and flows out of the country through unofficial channels at a rate of $22.1 billion in 2000 and $10 billion for the first half of 2001.

Russia is like someone with his veins cut open. Unresolved structural problems arising from foreign debt (more than $64 billion in 2001-2004) gobble up the country's currency reserves ($35 billion) and will lead to destructive devaluation of the ruble from mid 2002 to the end of 2004. And now, the new oligarchs have pressured the government into liberalizing currency regulations, which will only encourage capital flight and make devaluation more inevitable.

If this happens before the next presidential elections, the winner will be a victor just by chance. (Just imagine if presidential elections had been held in, say, September 1998.) But the worst thing is that whoever wins would be no more than a puppet in the hands of the new oligarchs – the only organized financial-political force.

Despite all his faults, Putin is better than Berezovsky and Chubais, who revealed all their plans and intentions back in 1995-98 when they controlled Russia's economic policy. Putin is also better than big business, which by nature isn't fit to take over the role of the state.

But fortunately, Berezovsky decided not to wait for the liberals to reap their catastrophic fruit before revealing his intentions. His haste shows the scope of the threat at hand and gives Putin a chance.

If Putin begins implementing a rational policy, overcomes his inability to make decisions and tackles the issues of making the state more effective and resolving structural problems in the economy, he will disarm Berezovsky's attacks and Chubais' reforms. Berezovsky and Chubais will fade into the darkness just like other black figures of the past such as Bluebeard or Jack the Ripper.

But this would mean renouncing today's policy of doing nothing to build the state, trying to raise energy prices without first resolving structural problems and modernizing budget policy rather than continuing the "Ceausescu policy" of paying foreign debt no matter what the cost at home.

If Putin doesn't start taking action and leaves things as they are, he will have to think not about victory in the 2004 presidential elections, but about finding himself a safe place afterwards.

This is why healthy forces in Russia today must pull together and help Putin by explaining to him the real state of affairs and pushing him towards reason, justice and real modernization of society. Only if Putin proves by his actions that he's not willing to listen to the voice of reason, and thus that he is helpless, should we start looking for an alternative.