It seems Putin is trying to take over Shell Oil's $20 billion investment in getting oil out of Russia's Sakhalin Island:

Pressure had mounted steadily on Shell for two years. The Kremlin bridled at cost-overruns on the project, and found fault with Shell’s environmental record, to the extent that it has started work on a $30 billion claim against the oil group.

Although no deal has been announced, oil-industry experts expect Gazprom, the gas group controlled by the Russian state, to take a large, and possibly majority, stake in the main Sakhalin II project. Van der Veer’s two Moscow meetings were with Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s chief executive.

This is really, really good news for many reasons:

(1) Shell Oil is an evil, multinational company -- which instantly makes them the "bad guy". Putin is an elected leader of a backwards nation, which instantly makes him the "good guy."

(2) Putin is simply trying to "nationalize" Shell Oil's so-called "investement" in exploiting Russia's oil resources. Now, that oil will be taken away from evil corporate greed and will serve the people of Russia!

(3) Putin clearly cares about the environment, as evidenced by the fact that he is willing to level a $30 billion environmental fine ($10 billion more than Shell has invested) against Shell for despoiling Sakhalin Island. (A former penal colony Russian writer Anton Chekov called "hell.")

(4) We all know multinationals like Shell exploit poor nations like Russia. Putin's move will set an example, discouraging future Western exploitation (euphemistically called "investement" by the radical right) of Russia, preventing Russian citizens from being employed, or otherwise having their traditional way of life changed, by these nefarious entities.

(5) The company which will win out is Russian-controlled Gazprom, which has employed anti-Bush critic and former German president Gerhardt Shroeder! So we know this new venture will be run in a principled, anti-Bush kind of way.

We remember how Schroeder told us he was deeply concerned about the environment, and rentlessly criticized Bush for failing to accept Kyoto. So we must assume his chosen employer, Gazprom, would conduct their oil trade in similarly deeply environmentally-sensitive manner. Certainly, Putin also seems to think they'll be better than Shell Oil, given that his main concern which led him to prefer them clearly seems to have been "the environment"!

So, let's hear it for Putin! Hooray!!! I'm wondering when Cindy Sheehan or Oliver Stone will get around to visiting him and thanking him for taking these caring economic moves, taken on behalf of all the poor citizens of Russia.

I just hope they'll be careful about what they eat.