Yukos Shares Decline, EU Sees Soon Bankruptcy

Russia?s largest oil company Yukos' shares fell 15 percent to $3.60, the lowest since October 2001. The decline is subject to investors? concerns that the company will be bankrupted, and the European Union said Russia?s President was trying to destroy Yukos.

"We interpret this as a decision of President Putin to destroy an economic empire which had certain strategic goals of political influence," Eneko Landaburu, the European Commission's director general of external relations, told the European Parliament, Reuters reported. "What's happening here is essentially a settling of accounts.''