Winners and losers in new era for Russia

Wealthy Russian oligarchs with London as their real homes - or discreet bolt-holes - are counting the cost of Dmitry Medvedev's sweeping victory as next Kremlin leader. While the new tsar is widely seen as Vladimir Putin's puppet, many of the rich elite may find significant changes in their lives as a result of the election.

Among this select but powerful group, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich could be the most relieved by the outcome. It may give him more time on his yachts. The whispers in Moscow are that when Putin hands over to the president-elect on 7 May, Abramovich will be freed of his role as governor of Chukotka, a far-flung corner of the Russian empire into which the tycoon has poured many millions of his own money to modernise the creaking economy.

Abramovich long ago sought Putin's agreement to relinquish his political role but was refused. It now looks as though he will be able to bid farewell to the whale-hunters and deer-herders of the remote region although he may be expected to nominate, and vouchsafe the success of, his replacement.

His ties to the Kremlin may loosen, exactly a decade after he was first seen as a significant player in decision-making under the old Boris Yeltsin regime. He is, though, destined to remain close to Putin, the expected new prime minister, who many expect to retain the real power in Russia.

The omens for Alisher Usmanov, major Arsenal shareholder and longtime friend of Abramovich, are different. Medvedev, until now the boss of state gas monopoly Gazprom, knows the Uzbek-born tycoon extremely well. Usmanov has been in charge of a Gazprom offshoot whose main role has been to advance the monolith's avaricious interests in central Asia.

Some call this colonialism by another name but, by all accounts, Usmanov, once jailed by the Soviet authorities, has pleased his master in this task and the signs are he will prosper under the Kremlin's new management. Worth £6.8 billion, he has been increasingly close to projects dear to the Kremlin's heart, buying art collections here and old Soviet cartoon films there, before restoring them to their rightful Russian home.

"He may emerge as a bigger player under Medvedev. The two men clearly know each other and have worked closely together in the past," said one diplomatic source.

If Usmanov gains from the change, it is less clear how Russia's current wealthiest man, metals tycoon Oleg Deripaska, will fare. Like the other two, who he knows well, he has a home in London, in his case a £25 million house in Belgravia.

His Millfield-educated wife Polina is daughter of Yeltsin's chief of staff, but he prefers to keep his head below the parapet in Britain. Most believe he is so well connected in Russia that the alteration in the ruling elite will not prevent him from making still more money. He is already worth £20 billion, some £8 billion more than Abramovich. The same continuity may not be true of Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and his businesswoman wife Elena Baturina. Under Luzhkov, Moscow has been transformed from a bleak Soviet city to one of the most exciting capitals in the world, with a booming property market.

His wife, meanwhile, has exploited the post-Communist era to become Russia's wealthiest woman, winning many prime building contracts for her businesses and accruing a £3.6 billion fortune. Putin has previously toyed with the idea of ousting Luzhkov, who he criticised for being too bureaucratic. Yet he also valued his political support in recent parliamentary and presidential elections.