‘People Are Happy’ Over Jailing of Russian

One day after a federal judge in New York denied bail to a Russian who was once one of the Kremlin’s most powerful figures, Moscow said Friday that it will continue to use “all diplomatic means” to press for his release.

Despite such rhetoric, however, there was growing opinion in Moscow that Pavel P. Borodin, who is fighting extradition to Switzerland to face corruption allegations, may be left hanging out to dry by his political associates--and that many ordinary Russians are not that upset by his arrest in the United States.

“The people are happy. They think that Borodin has got what he deserves, while [only] the elite has risen up in arms,” asserted Andrei A. Piontkovsky, director of the Independent Institute for Strategic Studies. “The public is quietly gloating over the fact [that] at long last, at least one of the top-ranking thieves got caught.”

Analysts note that President Vladimir V. Putin, who worked under Borodin when the latter was head of the Kremlin’s property department, has been conspicuously silent about the arrest. Swiss prosecutors want to question Borodin about allegations that he laundered money and pocketed millions of dollars in kickbacks for construction projects in the mid-1990s.

A Borodin lawyer, Genrikh Padva, tried to put the best face on Putin’s silence.

“I do not know that there is any such presidential duty to issue statements on a Russian citizen’s arrest,” he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. “But if the Foreign Ministry is making statements, it is being done with the president’s knowledge.”

Borodin, 54, a key figure in former President Boris N. Yeltsin’s political “Family,” has for the past year been state secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union, which is supposed to oversee reunification of the two former Soviet republics. He was arrested Jan. 17 on a Swiss warrant as he arrived in New York to attend celebrations of the inauguration of President Bush.

He had received an invitation to an inaugural dinner signed by a Republican Party donor but was not traveling on a diplomatic passport and apparently was unaware that he could be arrested in the United States at Switzerland’s behest.

On Thursday, U.S. Judge Viktor Pohorelsky ordered Borodin to remain in jail, denying a plea from Russian Ambassador Yuri V. Ushakov that Borodin be allowed to stay in the Russian Consulate while he waits for the outcome of his extradition case.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov said Friday that Russia was analyzing its options but stressed that officials would continue to push for Borodin’s “prompt return” to Russia.

In a move that some analysts here felt demonstrated faint support for Borodin, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov last week appointed a substitute as acting secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union during Borodin’s legal problems. The move drew an irked response from Belarus, whose president, Alexander G. Lukashenko, has been among the most strident critics of the arrest.

The image of such a powerful courtier as Borodin languishing in an ordinary U.S. jail has been startling for many Russians. Some people here have charged that Borodin was tricked into traveling to the United States, while others believe he has only himself to blame for not being more cautious.

Dmitri Y. Furman, a senior analyst at the Institute of Europe think tank in Moscow, said Borodin’s arrest could play into Putin’s hands. He said that the president is eager to sever the “umbilical cord” connecting him to his predecessor.

Furman said he could easily imagine a situation in which Borodin would be extradited and begin to testify about corruption within Yeltsin’s inner circle. This would give Putin a reasonable excuse to let go of top Yeltsin holdovers at the Kremlin.

“It is very natural for Putin to rebel against his creator, as every child rebels against his parents,” Furman said. “Putin will want to prove to himself that he is not just a cog in The Family’s machine, that he is not a pawn in someone else’s game.”

What’s more, he said, “that’s what the people want.”

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Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.