MOSCOW, April 18 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin failed on Thursday to make Time’s 2013 list of the world’s top 100 most influential people, but the magazine found a place for his close ally, the head of the Rosneft oil company, Igor Sechin.
“Informally, Sechin leads the Kremlin faction known as the siloviki, or ‘people of force,’ made up of former security agents,” wrote opposition politician Vladimir Milov for Time. “So far, no one can match their influence – and Sechin’s appetite for control makes him the group’s inevitable leader.”
Sechin, 52, was placed in the list’s “Titans” section, topped by US rapper Jay Z.
“In March, Rosneft, the state energy behemoth where Sechin serves as president, completed the largest acquisition in Russian history, purchasing a controlling share of the British-Russian venture TNK-BP and becoming the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer,” Milov added.
Alleged former KGB spy Sechin was the only Russian on the list, which consisted of what Time called people whose “ideas spark dialogue and dissent and sometimes even revolution.”
Putin was also left off the list last year, which saw the inclusion of opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny.