On Wednesday, Arkady Volsky, chairman of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs — unflatteringly known as the Union of Oligarchs — came out with a number of decidedly unoligarchic-sounding statements. First, he said that Russia's big-business leaders had decided to pay more taxes to the government. Second, he added that they had agreed to pump more money into charities to help President Vladimir Putin's stated campaign to overcome poverty in Russia — something the president has said makes him feel "ashamed." From whence come these two utterly out-of-character statements? After all, the oligarchs, with a few very incidental exceptions, are hardly fond of coughing up their "hard-earned" money into state coffers rather than stashing it overseas. For another, altruism is not a personality trait that comes up when one ponders the term "oligarch."

All this occurs against the background of the Yukos scandal and the targeting of key figures close to its CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was until quite recently Russia's poster boy for clean business. It is clear that the Kremlin, or some powerful factions within it, have decided for some reason to make an example of Yukos, and some talk of possible renationalization of privatized assets has been heard (though the government denies that this is an option). But why?

The answer is probably this: The other oligarchs — who had felt themselves to be in the clear after the government pushed Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky out of the political picture some two or so years ago — are now worried where the axe might fall next. Khodorkovsky is the wealthiest man in Russia and enjoys an unequaled reputation abroad, especially in the business community. If even he can be pressured by a Kremlin on the march, that means that they can be, too, and far more easily.

The government recently stated that it intends to double Russia's GDP within the next decade. At the same time, almost all observers are convinced that, as things stand today — with the country still dependent upon natural-resources exports, especially oil, and with its business moguls still by and large opposed to any real investment in the country, let along competition or the development of small or medium-sized business — this will be very difficult if not impossible to pull off.

We are sure that there is more to the Yukos story than just this — there is the matter of Khodorkovsky's increasing visibility in politics, for example, and the ambitions (and greed) of some in the government who would probably love to profit from the oil giant's distress. But the reaction on the part of Khodorkovsky's peers among the pantheon of Russia's super-rich makes us suspect that it is mainly an attempt to get them running scared — and thus willing to do a bit more to help the economy and country as a whole, not just multiply the holdings in their offshore bank accounts.

Yes, the government's hounding of Yukos smells of politicking and selective application of the law. We do recognize this as a downside. But if it leads to those who looted the wealth of Russia over the last decade actually pumping something back into the country from which they stole so much, who, really, will be able to say that this cloud does not have a very silver lining?