Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday strongly defended the takeover by state oil firm Rosneft of stricken oil major YUKOS's key production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, calling it a legitimate business deal. "Rosneft, which is de facto 100 percent state owned, bought Yuganskneftegaz. I think everything was done by market methods," Putin told a news conference. In his most strident defence yet of the Kremlin's seizure of YUKOS's prize asset, which pumps one-10th of Russia's oil, Putin said: "Today the state is using absolutely legal and market mechanisms to serve its interests." Rosneft announced early on Thursday it had bought 100 percent of unknown Baikal Finance Group, the surprise winner of Sunday's auction of Yugansk at a price of $9.4 billion. The purchase effectively nationalised Yugansk. The Yugansk auction was the culmination of a Kremlin campaign to crush YUKOS's politically ambitious principal owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and seize control of strategic sectors of the economy sold off in the chaotic privatisations of the 1990s. Khodorkovsky himself is on trial for fraud and tax evasion. --More 1834 Local Time 1534 GMT
