MOSCOW -- The men in camouflage fatigues and ski masks, armed with powerful automatic rifles and grenade launchers, were clearly on serious business -- but the frantic management of Moscow's most powerful and politically well-connected bank spent all of yesterday trying to figure out who they were and what they wanted.
They followed Vladimir Gusinsky, president of Most Bank, from his home to his office yesterday morning. They spent the daylight hours in parked cars, across the street from bank headquarters, at the front of the Russian White House.
The bank, which reportedly has strong ties to the KGB and is closely linked to Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, called in the KGB's successor organization to find out what was going on. The men from the Federal Counterintelligence Service showed up, and a few shots were reportedly fired, with no injuries.
Then both sides recessed to talk things over, and shortly afterward the counterintelligence agents left, telling bank officials only that this was not their business.
The Moscow police also came and went, as did the Russian tax police and a special anti-mafia strike force.
At 5 p.m. the heavily armed mystery squad took up positions around the bank building. They forced five people to lie down in the snow for about an hour and a half, but otherwise didn't move and didn't identify themselves. Bank officials were apparently free to leave, but one said they were afraid to leave their offices for fear that some evidence against them might be planted.
Finally, at 10 p.m., bank officials learned that the men were from the Main Department for Security, an elite force that reports directly to President Boris N. Yeltsin.
And a few moments later, they were gone.
This is law enforcement, Russian-style. Or perhaps it's politics.
Most Bank is the leader among the new private banks that have sprung up in Moscow and throughout Russia.
The bank's headquarters are in the mayor's office building, adjacent to the White House.
Until yesterday, Most Bank had the golden touch. Now its worried officers are trying to figure out what's going on.
Many of them reportedly worked with or for the KGB in years past, and it would be hard to say that that has been a disadvantage for the bank. But Mr. Yeltsin was on the move yesterday against the KGB, or at least one part of it. His office announced that he had fired Yevgeny Savostyanov, head of the counterintelligence department for Moscow.
Was he moving to punish the KGB's most favored bank, as well? No one at Most could say.
Officials did learn late in the evening that two bank drivers and four guards had been arrested. A local prosecutor, Alexander Selikhovkin, showed up and interviewed Mr. Gusinsky. He said he wanted to find out why shots had been fired, and was opening an official investigation into the day's events.
But the shots may have been the least of it. It appears that Mr. Selikhovkin will be looking at a case that involves some pretty powerful forces and some pretty shadowy maneuvering -- and one that undoubtedly has more chapters to come.