Russia Seeks Tycoon’s Arrest in Money-Laundering Case

MOSCOW —  Russian officials issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for tycoon Boris A. Berezovsky, who in a matter of months has slid from being the country’s richest man and top power broker to being its most prominent fugitive.

Berezovsky, the best-known and most influential of the business “oligarchs” who financed President Boris N. Yeltsin’s 1996 reelection campaign, is wanted on charges of money laundering and other illegal business practices.

The warrant is the latest twist in a tortuous Kremlin power struggle involving allegations of corruption at Russia’s highest levels, including in Yeltsin’s own family. Berezovsky is not in danger of imminent arrest because he is reportedly in France.

Leonid A. Radzikhovsky, a political analyst with the Segodnya daily newspaper, said that issuing the warrant while Berezovsky is out of the country “is a signal to him that he is not wanted here any longer, and he should stay away from Russia.”

In an interview with the Interfax news agency, Berezovsky said he has no intention of seeking political asylum outside Russia. Interfax did not say whether he denied the charges.

Vladimir Kazakov, a spokesman for the Russian prosecutor general’s office, said the government may decide to seek help from Interpol in taking Berezovsky into custody.

In recent weeks, Berezovsky has been a central target of the Kremlin. Last month, Yeltsin announced that he was firing him from his political job as secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the troubled alliance of former Soviet republics. Berezovsky’s dismissal, which became official Friday, ended his immunity from prosecution.

Analysts disagree on who has been leading the campaign against Berezovsky. Some say it is Yeltsin, who has tired of the tycoon’s flamboyant power plays and is embarrassed by allegations that Berezovsky conducted shady financial deals on behalf of the president’s family, in particular Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana Dyachenko.

Others point to Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, who is said to resent Berezovsky’s influence with Yeltsin. Still others suggest Prosecutor General Yuri I. Skuratov, who offered his resignation in February hours before investigators swooped down on a number of Berezovsky-linked businesses.

“For four years no charges were brought against Berezovsky despite all the evidence prosecutors must have held,” said Andrei A. Piontkovsky, director of the Independent Institute for Strategic Studies, a Moscow think tank. “Now the prosecutor general’s office has broken free from presidential control and is launching an open attack on the president and his family.”

Skuratov’s job has hung in the balance since February. Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, stood by him and refused to confirm his resignation. Skuratov returned to his post only to be suspended last week after local prosecutors opened an investigation against him. He has been accused of abusing his authority since a videotape surfaced purporting to show him cavorting with prostitutes.

On Tuesday, Skuratov submitted his resignation a second time. It was not clear whether the move was linked to the charges against Berezovsky or to Skuratov’s plans to provide details of alleged Kremlin corruption to lawmakers this week.

“It cannot be ruled out that the Kremlin teams are surrendering Berezovsky to evade a danger to themselves,” said Communist leader and Yeltsin foe Gennady A. Zyuganov.

Berezovsky’s fortune was founded on a chain of car dealerships that he opened in the late 1980s and that mushroomed during Russia’s privatization program, when well-connected buyers snapped up the country’s best industries at bargain-basement prices. Berezovsky’s business interests now stretch from oil to television networks to the national air carrier, Aeroflot.

Forbes magazine named Berezovsky Russia’s richest man in 1997, estimating his wealth at $3 billion. His fortunes fell the following year, but he retained his billionaire status with a net worth of $1.1 billion.

Last summer’s financial crisis is believed to have dealt a mortal blow to the empires of most of the oligarchs, including Berezovsky.