Moscow is this year fielding an army of officials to retake key posts on the boards of the biggest companies, as the Kremlin tightens its grip on publicly traded assets worth more than $469bn.

The government has nominated Igor Sechin, deputy chief of staff in the Kremlin, as a candidate for the board of Rosneft, the state-controlled oil group, while Viktor Zubkov, prime minister, this week became the highest-ranking public official on the list of candidates for Gazprom’s board.