The shareholders of BP's Russian venture TNK-BP confirmed May 27 that the board is at an impasse over the company's future strategy. The main point of contention being played up in public is whether the joint British-Russian venture should expand abroad. However, the real issue is how the company's Russian owners can push TNK-BP's British Chief Executive Robert Dudley out so the Kremlin can fully get its hands on the company. TNK-BP has been under immense pressure from the Kremlin for a few years, since Russian natural gas behemoth Gazprom included TNK-BP in its long list of Russian energy assets to capture. The Kremlin has used a slew of tactics to target TNK-BP, including Federal Security Service raids of the company headquarters, charges of back taxes and espionage accusations leveled at TNK-BP employees. However, the latest rift is actually between TNK-BP's owners. BP owns half the firm, and the other half is split among three Russian oligarchs: Viktor Vekselberg, Mikhail Fridman and Lev Blavatnik. The Russian shareholders say they are interested in expanding TNK-BP's assets abroad and accuse the British shareholders and Dudley of trying to stifle any expansion because it would put TNK-BP directly in competition with BP outside of Russia. This is the first time the Russian and British shareholders have had a public disagreement over TNK-BP's future. The dispute has escalated so quickly that there are rumors that Dudley will eventually be booted from his position and replaced by one of the Russian shareholders, most likely Vekselberg. That possibility has raised suspicion that the disagreement has nothing to do with TNK-BP's strategy and instead is just another bid by the Kremlin to break the company. All three of TNK-BP's Russian shareholders have deep ties with the Kremlin; moreover, each of the oligarchs is anxious to secure his other assets in Russia from being targeted by the Kremlin. The oligarchs have shown in the past that they are willing to bow to the Kremlin's plans to take TNK-BP and throw their British counterparts under the bus. But with the feud within TNK-BP going public — coupled with other Kremlin tactics — the end is in sight for the firm, which will join the long list of foreign enterprises scratched from Russia's increasingly nationalized energy sector.