Just for the record, here are a few quotes, taken from a range of Western and Russian newspapers, describing what happened at the meeting late last week between Russian President Vladimir Putin and 20 Russian "oligarchs," the hyperwealthy Russian businessmen who control vast swathes of the country's natural and financial resources, much of which they obtained through illegal or highly suspect means.

The Kremlin's press service claimed the discussions had established that "the authorities would not review the outcome of privatisations." This, for the uninitiated, is code for: "The authorities will not prosecute that very large number of hyperwealthy Russian businessmen who obtained their hyperwealth through illegal or highly suspect means."

Boris Nemstov, the liberal politician who organized the meeting, said that this news was met with approbation and relief: The oligarchs are now "sick of being oligarchs. … [T]hey want to be law-abiding taxpayers."

Oleg Kiselyov, the head of Impexbank, said, "Before us sat a most reasonable and capable man, a man able to understand the situation."

Izvestia newspaper (yes, it still exists; one of the oligarchs owns it) heralded the new era of "pragmatism," in which businessmen would no longer "stupidly" involve themselves in politics.

Everyone, reported the Moscow Times, emerged from the meeting smiling and joking and looking generally relieved. The Washington Post even opened its article on the meeting with the sentence, "President Vladimir Putin reassured edgy business tycoons today … ," and several went on television over the weekend to demonstrate, enthusiastically, how reassured they felt.  All of which heralds a new era in Russia: Government and business will now stay at a proper distance from one another. Rule of law has been re-established. No one will be unfairly arrested. No one will receive unfair favors. The oligarchs want to pay taxes just like everybody else. Right?

Er … not so sure about that. For the record, I would like to note the following discrepancies which I observed while in Moscow, in the days following the meeting.

One of the businessmen at the meeting had been due to attend a conference on the day following the meeting, a conference at which he would certainly have been asked to tell a group of Russian politicians and Western experts what had actually happened. Pleading illness, he failed to show up.

Another businessman, a junior partner of one who was at the meeting, told me that the president had been late. In the half-hour that they spent waiting for him, according to his boss, the 20 oligarchs, most of whom are individually worth the GDP of a small African country, were so nervous that they were unable to sustain a conversation: "These were frightened men, let me tell you."

A third businessman, one who has been heavily involved in helping President Putin to write his economic program, simply laughed when I showed him the Moscow Times report, noting its generally cheerful spin. "If you believe that, you'll believe anything."