Putin and Khodorkovsky’s public clash heated up in December 2001, when the Russian billionaire set up Open Russia, a philanthropic organisation set up to promote democratic accountability and press freedom.
“Like many people, I was deceived by a chameleon.” “If I knew now what I did when I first had a face-to-face meeting with Putin, I would have played a completely different game,” says Khodorkovsky. Putin regularly phoned Khodorkovsky during this time for advice about the economy, or to ask about Yukos. He left the Kremlin soon afterwards to head up Yukos, the oil and gas company. The book begins in the mid-1990s, when Khodorkovsky was serving as Deputy Fuel and Energy Minister in Boris Yeltsin’s Reform Cabinet. Khodorkovsky has recently published The Russia Conundrum. “It took me a long time to understand that Putin was a cunning liar and hypocrite,” the 59-year-old Moscow businessman and outspoken Kremlin critic explains from his home in London, where he currently lives in political exile.
In return, the Russian president promised not to interfere in their business affairs. Putin asked the wealthy elite not to use their money or power to cause trouble for the government by inciting protests. They met at a barbecue in Moscow, where Putin floated the idea of a non-aggression pact between the Kremlin and Russia’s richest oligarchs. Putin had recently made his inaugural speech as President of the Russian Federation. Khodorkovsky was then Russia’s wealthiest individual. Mikhail Khodorkovsky remembers the moment back when Vladimir Putin turned against him. Jailed for being too political, Mikhail Khodorkovsky says it will take a generation for Russia to recover from his former friend’s vicious and disastrous ruleĭec 28 Mikhail Khodorkovsky visiting Eastern Ukraine in 2014 to meet with local businessmen and members of the public regarding the political crisis there.
0 kommentar(er)
