During the Cold War, the struggle to understand the opaque inner workings and power struggles of the Soviet government was a fully fledged field of academic study, known as Kremlinology.

Top U.S. Kremlinologists like Zbigniew Brzezinski or Richard Pipes used "the tiniest tidbits, such as the removal of portraits, the rearranging of chairs, positions at the reviewing stand for parades in Red Square , and other indirect signs to try to understand what was happening in internal Soviet politics."

BP investors must wish they had similar expertise at their disposal as rumors swirl around the U.K. oil giant's continuing dispute with its Russian partners in TNK-BP, who have blocked the recent Arctic exploration deal with state oil firm Rosneft.

The latest rumor Friday, that Rosneft was about to end the dispute by buying out the Russian half of TNK-BP, was quickly slapped down by the Rosneft CEO. But it would be foolish to assume that the speculation will end there. Nobody knows what BP's partners, the Alfa-Access-Renova consortium of Russian billionaires, really wants, or whether the arbitration process that is set to begin on Feb. 14 marks the end, or the escalation, of hostilities.

One way to get an insight into this dispute is to study what happened the last time BP clashed with its Russian partners, back in the summer of 2008. The twists and turns of that murky, acrimonious dispute became a little clearer this week with the release of 15 diplomatic cables from the U.S. embassy in Moscow , by WikiLeaks this week.

Before 2008, BP was clearly the driving force in its Russian joint venture--it had three of five board seats; TNK-BP's CEO Bob Dudley, and COO Tim Summers, were BP men; a significant number of the company's senior technical staff were BP employees on secondment to Russia .

The Russian billionaires behind AAR, notably German Khan, Mikhail Fridman, and Viktor Vekselberg, wanted to expand TNK-BP overseas and increase the company's dividends, but Dudley, who is now CEO of BP, frustrated their efforts. So they decided to grab more power using every resource at their disposal.

In a June 2008 meeting with two U.S. diplomats, Dudley is quoted: "[The] Russian partners were resorting to ever more extreme tactics to gain control of the company, including the continued use of state administrative resources."

Around the same time BP's dispute with AAR began to boil over, most of the foreign workers at TNK-BP, including Dudley , began to have visa difficulties, culminating in a raid on the company's office by immigration authorities and the forced suspension of 148 BP employees in March 2008.

Dudley 's visa problems continued throughout the dispute, as did threatening behavior from the Russian authorities. In a cable from August 2008, BP's chief lawyer in Russia, Michael Drew, described how the TNK-BP CEO, "often found papers 'left on his kitchen table' upon his return to his apartment in the evening, presumably left by court or government officials who let themselves into Dudley's residence."

AAR clearly had powerful state levers they could pull to help their cause. "Russian government intervention was needed to broker a settlement," Dudley said at the June meeting. However, different factions of the government, and the state energy companies they represented, were rooting for different sides, or perhaps both sides.

BP believed it had Russia 's largest and most powerful corporation, Gazprom, on its side. "Gazprom still wanted to buy out the Russian half of TNK-BP and pursue a global partnership with BP," Shawn McCormack, TNK-BP's Vice President for International Relations, is quoted in a May 2008 cable. AAR was doing its best to fight off Gazprom, McCormack said, but was clearly nervous about its involvement.

Less than a month later, things hadn't quite worked out as BP expected.

"BP's talks with Gazprom about a global partnership had been put on hold because of a power struggle within the governing elite, with officials connected with Rosneft objecting to the partnership," Dudley is quoted as saying in the June meeting. "

He said he had also heard that the government of Russia was considering letting the two sides fight each other to exhaustion, like 'Siberian tigers' and then capture the survivor to create a third Russian major oil company," the cable says.

A month later, Dudley told the U.S. ambassador that, " AAR is acting with direct cooperation from the government of Russia , including from Deputy Prime Minister [and Rosneft Chairman] Igor Sechin."

Not long after that, Dudley 's visa troubles forced him to leave Russia , allowing German Khan to take full day-to-day control of the company. In September of 2008, BP submitted to the pressure and cut a deal that saw Dudley resign and greatly weakened its control of TNK-BP.

"German Khan has moved quickly and aggressively to exert maximum control," McCormack is quoted in a cable from November 2008. Although the two sides had agreed to appoint a new, neutral person to head the company, "the job description of the new CEO could be summarized as 'do what Khan says'," McCormack is quoted.

BP lost that battle, but it is arguably in a stronger position today.

AAR still wields considerable influence in Russia , and this time has legitimate means of attack against BP--the shareholder agreement signed in September 2008 that says BP and AAR should have an exclusive partnership in Russia .

However, BP also has the explicit and very public backing of Rosneft and Sechin. In particular, the cross-shareholding agreed between BP and Rosneft was a huge coup for Sechin and seems like something he wouldn't give up without a fight.

For all AAR 's power, it's hard to see them winning a fight with Sechin.

However, if the events of 2008 tell us anything, it's that we shouldn't assume that the intentions of factions within the Russian government are as straightforward as they appear.

As Mark Twain said: "The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."

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