The Forward has a report on the expulsion of the 13 Chabad yeshiva students from Russia and the fight between Moscow-based and Kfar Chabad-based parts of the Chabad movement. The key quote:
…Just a week before the arrests, one of the yeshiva’s leaders in Israel wrote a letter to [Chabad's "chief rabbi" of Russia, Berel] Lazar, accusing him of working to hurt the yeshiva.
“If it will become public that the chief rabbi of Russia allowed one of the best yeshivas in Russia to be closed — and on the eve of the birthday of the founder of the yeshiva — we can just imagine what other people will think,” wrote Mordechai Ashkenazi, chief rabbi of Israel’s main Chabad enclave.
It is not clear whether the dispute mentioned by Ashkenazi is related to the arrests.…
Is Berel Lazar behind the expulsion?
I'm still not convinced, in part because some of the tactics Lazar says Ashkenazi and Aranow used have been used by both men previously in other, non-Russia disputes including one I'm aware of from about 15 years ago. But time will tell.