There is something unsettling about BP, Britain's largest company, publicly co-operating with the Kremlin by allowing TNK-BP, its Russian joint venture, to join state-run Rosneft in this week's auction of assets from the bankrupt Yukos group.

To nobody's surprise, there were no other participants and Rosneft won, paying just $7.59bn for a chunk of its own equity with a stock market value of $8.4bn. TNK-BP abandoned its bid after less than 10 minutes. But it insisted it had participated in good faith - and pulled out only because it could not match Rosneft on price. The company failed to convince analysts, who said that from the start the auction was designed to favour Rosneft.