After speaking with Yuly Dubov, the chairman of the managing board of the publishing house, Kommersant's commercial director Pavel Filenkov told RIA Novosti that Vladimir Lensky, who had worked earlier on the NTV+ satellite television channel, had become the publishing house's new director general. Vladislav Borodulin, ex-editor of the Gazeta.ru Internet newspaper, had been appointed editor.
Filenkov explained that the changes reflected the unhappiness of Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch who has been granted political asylum in the U.K., with the publishing house's policy. He said this move would "freshen up" the newspaper.
"I suppose the newspaper will undergo certain changes in light of discontent that Boris Berezovsky voiced during his last TV link-up with the staff," Filenkov said. "He criticized the newspaper for its low level of activity."
Andrei Vasilyev, a former director general of the Kommersant publishing house and editor of the newspaper, has recently taken charge of Berezovsky's Ukrainian affiliate, Kommersant-Ukraine, which is to be put into circulation in July.
