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Russian Presidential Candidate Rybkin Goes Missing (Update2)

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Russian presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin has not been seen by his family, friends or colleagues since he went missing from his Moscow home Thursday night, his campaign manager said in an interview.

Rybkin, 57, was Saturday registered as a candidate for March 14 presidential elections. A former secretary of Russia's security council, he was last seen Thursday night by his driver and bodyguard when he returned to his central Moscow home.

``We have not heard anything from Ivan since Thursday night and nor has his family,'' Ksenya Ponamaryova, Rybkin's campaign manager, said in a telephone interview from Moscow. ``I don't have any interpretation of what is going on.''

Support for Rybkin was at less than 1 percent in an opinion poll conducted last month by the All Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion. President Vladimir Putin scored 79 percent in the survey, which was carried out among 1,601 people across Russia and has a margin of error of 3.4 percent.

Prosecutors today overturned a decision to open a murder case in connection with Rybkin's disappearance, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said. There was no basis to open a murder case, she said.

Rybkin, married with two daughters, studied at Volgograd Agricultural institute and the diplomatic academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry. He was a chairman of the lower house of the Russian parliament from 1994 to 1996 and secretary of the security council from 1996 to 2000.

Putin Critic

Rybkin said last month that he received funding from Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky, who has been granted political asylum in the U.K., is wanted in Russia on charges of fraud that Berezovsky says are politically motivated and false.

``I am against Vladimir Putin because he doesn't keep his word,'' a Rybkin election pamphlet reads. ``Putin is returning the country to the path which destroyed the Soviet Union and is now destroying Russia.''

A bomb blast on the Moscow Metro underground railway killed at least 39 people and hospitalized 122 last Friday. Putin said the attack was linked to Chechen separatists, including former Chechnya President Aslan Maskhadov. Maskhadov's representatives denied involvement and no one has taken responsibility for the blast yet.

Putin, 50, became Russia's youngest leader since Tsar Nicholas II, who abdicated in 1917, after Boris Yeltsin handed over power to the former KGB agent on the last day of the last century. Putin has presided over Russia's fastest economic growth for at least a decade, cut taxes and allowed the sale of land for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

Russia's economy has expanded for five straight years, growing by about a third, according to government estimates. Last year the economy grew 7.3 percent and Citigroup Inc. expected Russia's economy to grow at least 6.5 percent this year.

Opponents

In March 2000 presidential elections, Putin won 39.7 million votes, or 53 percent of the votes cast. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov came second with 21.9 million votes, or 29 percent of the votes. Zyuganov, who has stood in every presidential election since the fall of the Soviet Union, said he won't stand in this election.

Russia's central electoral commission said it registered opposition candidates Sergei Glazyev and Irina Khakamada yesterday. Both are running as independents as their parties refused to support their presidential bids. Glazyev gained the second-largest rating in the All Russian Center For the Study of Public Opinion poll, with 4 percent.

The three other registered candidates are Sergei Mironov, chairman of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov and Oleg Malyshkin, who supervises the bodyguards of LDPR party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Former central bank chairman Viktor Geraschenko was refused registration because he did not supply lists of signatures of supporters as required for registration, the central electoral commission reported.

In 2000, the central electoral commission counted 74.4 million correctly marked votes, or 68 percent of the 109.4 million registered voters. About 1.4 million people, or 1.9 percent, voted against everyone.

Russian Presidential Candidate Says He Was Kidnapped (Update3)

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Russian presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin, who went missing for five days last week, said he was kidnapped and drugged in Kiev by unidentified armed attackers who spoke perfect Russian.

Rybkin, 57, told journalists in London that he will stay out of Russia until presidential elections on March 14. The former secretary of Russia's security council surfaced Tuesday after disappearing from his Moscow apartment five days earlier.

``My absence from Russia will tell the Russian voters and Western governments 100 times more than my presence,'' Rybkin said in a statement. ``After what happened in Kiev I am convinced that this election is a game without rules.''

Rybkin, who has criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for authoritarianism and the war in Chechnya, is supported by Boris Berezovsky, a billionaire who has obtained political asylum in the U.K. and is wanted in Russia on charges of fraud. Berezovsky denies the charges, which he claims are politically motivated.

Little known outside Russia until reports this week of his disappearance, Rybkin gained front-page headlines in Russian papers when he returned to Moscow on Tuesday. Rybkin told his campaign manager Tuesday that he had spent time in Kiev with friends relaxing, the manager told Bloomberg News at the time.

Abduction

Today, he told journalists at a news conference that he boarded a train voluntarily to Kiev after being told that he could meet former Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov in the city. In Kiev, he was driven to an apartment, drugged and possibly gassed, and then kept at the apartment by unidentified captors, he said.

Last week, Putin linked a bomb blast in the Moscow underground to Maskhadov, whose London-based representative denied any responsibility for the blast, which killed at least 39 people and hospitalized 122.

Rybkin said he was unconscious for four days, and that when he came to he was shown a video of himself ``made by horrible perverts.'' The video was made ``to compromise me,'' he said, refusing to describe its contents.

``I don't know who did it but I know for whose benefit it was done,'' Rybkin told journalists. He was subsequently released and returned to Moscow, he said.

Poll Rating

Putin, whose campaign for the March 14 presidential election officially began yesterday, received a rating of 79 percent in an opinion poll, which was conducted by the Moscow-based All Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion from Jan. 23 to Jan. 26. Rybkin gained less than 1 percent in the poll. The survey was carried out among 1,601 people across Russia and has a margin of error of 3.4 percent.

``I believe that anything said by Mr. Berezovsky and other people close to him should be considered a lie unless proved otherwise,'' Eric Kraus, the chief strategist at Moscow brokerage Sovlink, said after the announcement. Rybkin ``would be the last person anyone would want to kidnap -- have you seen his tiny poll ratings?''

Rybkin, who has two daughters, studied at Volgograd Agricultural Institute and the diplomatic academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry. He was a chairman of the lower house of the Russian parliament from 1994 to 1996 and secretary of the security council from 1996 to 2000.

``Putin's ratings are not portrayed as they really are,'' Rybkin said.

To contact the reporter on this story:

Sam Fleming in London at [email protected].

To contact the editors for this story:

Chris Kirkham at [email protected].

Heather Harris, or [email protected].

Catherine Hickley at [email protected].

Last Updated: February 13, 2004 11:43 EST