Gazprom members, such as Chernomyrdin and the Gazprom Chief Executive Officer, Rem Viakhirev, engaged in asset-stripping. Gazprom assets were shared amongst their relatives. Itera, a gas trading company also received Gazprom assets. In March 1998, for reasons unrelated to his activities at Gazprom, Chernomyrdin was fired by Yeltsin. On 30 June 1998, Chernomyrdin was made Chairman of the Board of Directors of Gazprom. When, in June 2000, Vladimir Putin became the President of Russia, he acted to gain control over Russia's oligarchs, and increase the Government of Russia's control in important companies through a program of national champions. Putin fired Chernomyrdin
Gazprom is Gazprom Export LLC, founded in 1973 and before November 1, 2006 known as Gazexport, which has a monopoly on gas exports to countries outside of the former Soviet Union. The majority of Russian gas in Europe is sold on 25 year contracts. In late 2004, Gazprom was the sole gas supplier to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Finland, Macedonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Slovakia. It provided 97 percent of Bulgaria's gas, 89 percent of Hungary's gas, 86 percent of Poland's gas, nearly 75 percent of the Czech Republic's, 67 percent of Turkey's, 65 percent of Austria's, about 40 percent