The Economist has a profile of Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin - Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft, is powerful as never before.

“HELLO, you’ve called Rosneft,” goes a joke making the rounds in Moscow. “If you have an oil asset and you don’t plan to sell, press the hash key.” The Russian word for hash key, reshetka, also means “bars”, as in jail—where those who cross Rosneft’s head, Igor Sechin, tend to land.

Mr Sechin is one of the most feared men in Russia and an essential instrument of Vladimir Putin’s power. A major player among the siloviki (former and current members of the security services), he epitomises Russia’s nexus between political power and property. Despite being a target of American sanctions, earlier this month he succeeded in selling a 19.5% stake in Rosneft to Glencore, a commodities firm, and the Qatar Investment Fund, raising $11bn. The deal, the biggest foreign investment in Russia since the start of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, pleased the Kremlin no end. “Putin needs that like he needs air,” says Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist who studies the Russian elite.

Another boost to Mr Sechin’s prestige came with the nomination of Rex Tillerson, the boss of ExxonMobil, as America’s secretary of state. The two men’s long relationship was consummated by the deal they struck in 2011 for their firms to work jointly in the Arctic. Mr Sechin is now poised to become an intermediary between Moscow and Washington.

I quite liked this comment on the article that seems to be getting the most attention on the murky transfer to 19% of Rosneft - The back-channel oil pact with Trump.

Interestingly, since the Trump administration started getting security briefings and Trump began his (unrecorded) phone calls to Putin and dropped sanctions against the Russian FSB security service there seems to be something of a purge going on over in Russia of cyber-security officials and Interior Ministry generals...

If there was a deal, we can assume it was contingent on Trump’s election, followed by getting rid of the sanctions against Russia. That would have led to Trump’s coy references about Russia.

If there was a deal, Page would not get a commission until sanctions are gone, of course, and maybe not even until Exxon starts drilling in the Arctic, a deal the Russians say is worth $500 billion. (Apparently, Exxon has the technology to tap the Arctic reserves and Rosneft doesn’t.) And no rush, with oil prices low.

Question: does Tillerson get part of the cut or just take his profit from Exxon. If Sessions has to rule on this, will he get something too? What about the EPA and regulations about drilling in the Arctic? The State Department surely is crucial in making all this work, thus is might be part of the plan to replace as many old-timers as possible. (Nice move with the immigration ban, to stir things up and encourage people to quit.)

I've been wondering for a while how Putin's rumoured videos of Donald Trump's hobbies would be enough to convince him to run for President hard enough to actually win it.

The carrot to accompany the stick became clearer over the last 24 hours as stories linking the transfer of ownership of 19% of Russian oil company Rosneft to an unknown party - now widely believed to be Trump.

The stories seem to be partially born out by the dossier assembled by ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele that ended up being put forward by US Intelligence agencies, predicting that 19% of Rosneft would be given to Trump if sanctions were lifted.

This also helps to explain Trump's desire to ally with Russia, his hostility to clean energy and action to reduce global warming, and the likes of oilman Rex Tillerson in his cabinet - rather than just having a yearning for returning the US to the 1950s he now has a large financial interest in maintaining oil as a primary source of energy.

Keeping Iraq unstable in the coming years will no doubt help the oil price, and his personal wealth, increase too.