Mikhail Khodorkovsky continues to thwart attempts by Putin’s government to convince the West that Russia is a stable climate for investment, reports Simon Shuster of Time Magazine.

Recently documents were leaked which have cast a shadow over Igor Shuvalov, Putin’s trusted aide in charge of attracting Western investment to Russia. Many suspect that documents were leaked by Pavel Ivlev, Shuvalov’s old friend and former Yukos lawyer, who was forced to flee Russia when the Kremlin began its attack on Yukos.

Since leaving Russia, Ivlev has lived in the United States running Russian anti-corruption campaigns with Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s son Pavlev and anti-Putin campaigns with Russian opposition activist Alexey Navalny.

The leak came just days after Vasily Aleksanyan, a friend of both Ivlev and Shuvolov, died in prison from medical neglect in October 2011 for his ties to Yukos. Shuster suggests that Ivlev has leaked documents to injure the reputation of Shuvolov, who has become deeply rooted in Putin’s government and who surprised Ivlev with his callous reaction to the death of Aleksanyan.

According to Shuster, Shuvalov chose to join Putin’s team while his friends joined Yukos oil, and Shuvalov was powerless to help them when they came under attack from Putin’s government, adding that Ivlev’s attack on Shuvalov is an effort to cut Putin’s ties to the West and economic growth for a corrupt Russian government.