The Kremlin considers the Media-MOST affair closed. The company is practically in ruins and its owner is in exile. Now, the time has come to put the war machine – Gazprom, in this case – back on a peacetime footing and begin dividing up the booty. As for the "killer-managers" hired over a year ago, it's time for them to become just plain managers.

Alfred Koch, for one, has already left – and returned again. No, he hasn't come back to Gazprom, but he has decided to stay in the media business. What's more, only a few days after making ripples with his statements that he'd been "forced out with the help of apparatus intrigues," there he was having a frank chat with a Kommersant journalist.

In an interview with Kommersant, he said straight out that he and Boris Jordan intended to buy Gazprom's media resources, including what it took over from Media-MOST. Kokh didn't even bother hiding the reasons that prompted him to kick up such a fuss.

"At first, everything went down favorably," he said, "but then it all got stuck in the bureaucratic machine. In the end, only after my resignation, Mr. [Alexei] Miller [Gazprom's chairman] literally forced the words from his mouth that he would sell this media resource. … I wouldn't say the Kremlin wanted me to stay in my post. They just didn't want me to make a fuss."

Kremlin sources cut straight to the point in their comments after Kokh's first statements, saying that, "he got done out of his bonus or thought his stake was too small." The sources certainly didn't believe there were any apparatus intrigues going on. And they look doubtful now, too; but probably only the Kremlin can confirm this. Kokh wanted a 100-percent guarantee that he would win the future auction for the media assets, and it looks as though he has got what he wanted.

The comments that followed Kokh's initial statements were surprising to say the least. For a start, everyone seemed to take Kokh on his word, even though he has never made a secret of his willingness to stray from the truth when it suits him. He has shown how to do it over the last year and a half, while carrying out his Kremlin contract to liquidate Vladimir Gusinsky's rebellious media holding.

The surprising thing was that the commentators all seemed to assume that Kokh had no interest in the media business and was happy enough just to get a fat fee for his work.

This did seem to be the case at first, but about a year ago, when the hired state liquidators came to the conclusion that the end was near for Media-MOST (though they had to wait another six months), people who spent time with Kokh at that period said he became seriously interested in the details of the media business.

Later, after the takeover of NTV, Kokh began having a hand in the channel's editorial policies. In the end, he took the full plunge and made a couple of appearances as host of the TV show "Alchnost" (Greed). What's more, sources at the top said that the Kremlin was not opposed to Gusinsky's media assets getting legal independence from Gazprom, or to having Kokh at their head.

It had already become known during the summer that Kokh and SPS (Union of Right Forces) leader Boris Nemtsov were working on a draft presidential decree that would require all natural monopolies to give up their non-core businesses – things like media business interests, for example. But the decree didn't ever get to President Vladimir Putin for a signature. Either Putin decided not to intervene, or UES boss Anatoly Chubais, who has no desire to part with his recently acquired REN-TV channel, asked him not to sign the decree.

At the same time, Kremlin sources began talking about Media Minister Mikhail Lesin's plans to set up his own media holding. The center of the holding was to be information agency RIA Novosti, which is being prepared for privatization by Lesin's own people. It is not so much the agency itself that interests Lesin as its real-estate assets inherited from the Soviet era and spread across more than 100 countries. Also attractive is the agency's contract with the Russian Foreign Ministry that gives it a monopoly on conducting propaganda campaigns abroad.

Sources confirmed that according to Lesin's plans, RIA-Novosti was to merge with the media assets acquired by the Kokh-Jordan team from Gazprom. Lesin would then leave the Media Ministry and take over the running of the new holding, all the more so as with Media-MOST gone, he had no reason to keep his state post any more.

Kokh's "hysteria," then, is most likely due to the fact that Gazprom is taking too long over selling Gazprom-Media. Kokh had named April 1 of next year as the final deadline for the deal. There could be some commercial reason for this impatience, or maybe Kokh is just terribly anxious to enter full ownership rights. Then again, he could be worried that the Kremlin will rethink and start looking for another candidate to run the "independent" media holding. Of course, it seems hardly necessary to say that the new holding won't be genuinely independent.

The reason for this is that the Kremlin is only all too aware how powerful a weapon TV can be. It remembers perfectly well what someone can do if they have as powerful an information resource as television in their hands. This means that even if the new holding becomes legally independent, steps will still be taken to ensure it remains under the Kremlin's control.

It was obvious from the start that there would not be any honest auction, and that no unexpected buyer, Russian or foreign, will be allowed to win. Foreign presence will be tolerated only in tandem with "reliable" Russian owners approved by the presidential team. Kokh's statements confirm this, as they also confirm that Kokh and the concept of doing business according to the rules do not go hand-in-hand.