Police raid Yukos headquarters
 |  Putin has said he does not want Yukos to go bust. |
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MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russian special interior ministry officers have sealed offices in the headquarters of tax-troubled Yukos oil company, a company spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman said on Saturday about 50 to 60 people were inside the building in Moscow and that their actions did not appear to be a search. Instead, she said, Yukos officials speculated they were trying to seize it.
Yukos officials were talking with the ministry to try to establish what was going on.
The action comes two days after court bailiffs came to Yukos to demand payment on $3.4 billion tax claim against the company by Russian tax authorities for the year 2001.
The Interfax news agency reported that about 100 agents, some from the Interior Ministry and some from the Prosecutor General's office, arrived at the building at about 2 p.m. (1000 GMT) before surrounding it.
On Thursday, the same day the tax ministry levied the tax claim for 2001, a court upheld an earlier claim of about the same amount for 2000.
Yukos has said that the first demand alone would bankrupt the company. On Wednesday, the company offered to pay back a third of the total for 2000 spread out over two years.
The news of the new claim hit the markets just before closing Thursday and sent Yukos stock downward, falling 12.3 percent, according to Interfax.
Analysts have been predicting new claims could be in the offing but the speed of Thursday's action stunned them.
James Fenkner of Troika Dialog tells CNN the amount for 2001 was "double our estimates."
Some analysts thought President Vladimir Putin might step in in support of not bankrupting Yukos but, instead, the tax ministry leveled the new claim.
In addition, he said, there is no sign of any deal pending between Yukos and the government to avoid bankruptcy.
"If there is a negotiation between Menatep (the major shareholder in Yukos, owned by former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky) and the Kremlin," he said, "it's more intense than the Cuban missile crisis."
Meanwhile, Khodorkovsky and close associate Platon Lebedev are facing trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion totaling more than $1 billion.
Analysts have said the collapse of Yukos would undermine faith in the Russian economy, throw stock markets into turmoil and call into question Putin's commitment to private property and economic reform.
Nevertheless observers believe the tax claims against Yukos and the Khodorkovsky trial are part of a Kremlin-inspired vendetta aimed at stripping the 41-year-old tycoon of his economic and political clout.
Copyright 2004 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
Interior ministry officers seal offices inside the Yukos headquarters.
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