The Russian government is likely to further strengthen its control over Gazprom, the Russian gas group, after the company's annual general meeting this month as a result of recent shifts among minority shareholders. Burckhard Bergmann, the head of the German group Ruhrgaz and an outside Gazprom director, has sought votes from Gazprom and the state, after EON, his new parent company, reversed its strategy of building its stake to 10 per cent. Instead, it plans to maintain the current level of 6.43 per cent, below the threshold of 7.7 per cent required last year to win election to the board. The position of Boris Fyodorov, honorary chairman of the Moscow brokerage United Financial Group, who is standing for re-election to Gazprom's board as an independent director, has also been weakened because one of his principal backers, Sovereign Asset Management, a secretive Monte Carlo-based investment fund, is believed to have sold most of its holdings in Gazprom. With other Gazprom shares widely held by institutions and individuals who rarely vote, the changes risk making both men - those most likely to win outside boardroom seats at the AGM on June 25 - more dependent on support from the Russian state and from Gazprom itself. * Gazprom and other companies this week closed a deal for about Dollars 100m to repurchase a controlling stake in Stimul, a former subsidiary in southern Russia, from Victory Oil.