Bloomberg's Matthew Lynn warns of the perils of investing in Russia:

How much provocation does big business need before it has doubts about Russia?

Anglo-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch Shell Plc has been threatened with lawsuits from the Russian government, which is tightening its grip on the country's energy industry.

Companies as diverse as Swedish furniture chain Ikea AB and German retailer Metro AG are also finding that Russia can be a tough place to do business.

Yet Western companies are still pouring money, energy and expertise into Russia. They are attracted by a high-growth, low- tax economy offering the chance to make a lot of money quickly.

It is time they wised up. Sure, you can make a quick buck in Russia. The trouble is that you can lose it just as fast if the government bullies you out of what you have created. Until Russia starts playing by the rules as part of the global economy, foreign investment should be shifted elsewhere.

``Investors need to start holding executives to account for giving in to this kind of extortion,'' Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer for Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said in a telephone interview. Khodorkovsky, who says he was targeted for supporting opponents of the Russian government, is serving an eight-year prison term for fraud and tax evasion.

The treatment of Shell is the most shameful episode so far. Shell's development of the $22 billion Sakhalin-2 oil and gas field off Russia's Pacific coastline is one of the biggest foreign investments made in the country since the collapse of the communist regime 15 years ago.

Gazprom Move

Sakhalin-2 is the only major oil and gas field in Russia that is wholly foreign-owned, so it was only a matter of time before Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to bring it under state control. The government plans to lodge a claim of at least $10 billion in environmental damages against Shell. State- owned energy company OAO Gazprom is now conveniently positioning itself to buy half of the project.

Shell has brought its offshore-drilling techniques to the Sakhalin-2 field. It has invested a huge amount of capital. Now, it looks as if the company will be harassed until it agrees to sell a big chunk of its assets to Gazprom, no doubt at a knock- down price. This way of doing business might be normal in some countries. Yet it has no place among major companies from developed nations.

It is an outrageous maneuver by Putin and the Russian government. One wonders why U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair has flown off to make another doomed attempt at bringing peace to the Middle East when he could be deploying his self-proclaimed diplomatic genius to help one of his country's biggest companies.

Economic Chauvinism

Although the saga has some way to run, there is little doubt how it will end. Shell will have to surrender. After all, what else can it do? You can't operate in a nation whose government is set against you.

Russia's treatment of Shell should serve as a warning. The country may soon become a no-go area for global companies. It is developing a narrow-minded economic chauvinism that even the French would find embarrassing. The best response from big business would be to stay away.

The oil and gas industry isn't the only target. Ikea has been embroiled in numerous disputes with Russian authorities since it started opening its familiar blue and yellow sheds in the country in March 2000. The company was once stopped from building a footbridge across a busy highway to its store because the walkway was too close to a war monument. Ikea's founder, Ingvar Kamprad, unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Putin last year to complain about how Ikea was being treated.

Metro Price War

Likewise, Metro, Germany's largest retailer, is facing criticism from Russian electronics chains for undercutting the prices of local retailers at the Media Markt outlets it has opened in Moscow.

Maybe you can argue that the country needs control of its oil and gas reserves. But Ikea? What possible harm could cheap self-assembly bookshelves be doing to Russian pride?

The mystery is that foreign companies are still lining up to get their faces punched. Italian fashion company Stefanel SpA said last month it plans to open about 30 stores in Russia over the next three or four years, according to La Stampa newspaper.

Pernod Ricard SA, the world's second-largest liquor producer, said this month it may buy Russia's Stolichnaya vodka brand. How is that possible? If Shell isn't allowed to own Russia's second-most-important form of liquid energy, Putin's government surely won't be happy with the French grabbing the most important one.

Rapid growth may have convinced many big companies that they need to be in the Russian market. Yet if you aren't allowed to keep control of your assets, there is no point in being there. Put your money to work in eastern Europe, India or China instead.

If Western capital and know-how were withdrawn, Putin and his cronies may even understand that they must start playing by the rules.

Cicero continues the theme:

The implications of his point that Russia is not a sensible place for major international investment are even more profound than they first appear.

Essentially Russia is not only refusing to allow international business to function, but where investment is being made in capital equipment and techniques that the Russians do not posses themselves, then they are trying to steal this proprietary technology.

Meanwhile the political picture grows more violent. Putin's "Nashi" goons continue to harass anyone they see fit- including the widespread use of violence and murder.

This is not a recipe for a powerful Russia. It is a recipe for an impoverished, weak and isolated Russia. Such is the catastophe that the KGB Colonel has led his country into.

The greedy, Mafia state will fail- and with unforeseeable consequences. Despite the flow of petro-dollars, the money leaves Russia as fast as it arrives. Away from the Potemkin villages of Moscow and St. Petersburg, conditions are little better than mediaeval. Corrupt and broken police forces vie with the local hoodlums to see who can extract more from the defeated and downtrodden populace. The corrupt and brutal army continues to bully thousands of conscripts- hundreds of whom die each year. Meanwhile generals make a niced cut selling arms, often to the Mafia or to the Chechen troops that they are supposed to be fighting.

The average Russian male can now expect to live less than 52 years. Most even of that short time is likely to be in a drunken haze of gutrot vodka.

By taking away peoples rights to control their own lives, you take away their reason to live. The criminal regime of the vile Putin- now apparently the richest man in his tin-pot kingdom- has destroyed more than it created, but mostly it has destroyed the most precious thing of all: hope.