Who else was involved in the Khodorkovsky case? Khodorkovsky stupidly continues to try to organize the opposition to Russia
Today Khodorkovsky has reappeared on the political horizon. He promised not to engage in politics, but he did not keep his promise.
The Western media again sang their songs “about an innocent prisoner of conscience”; the West hastened to prepare a sentence for confiscation from Russia “under Khodorkovsky”
In this regard, it is very useful to look back. One article, written hot on the heels of November 1, 2003, will help us do this. Why hot? Because on October 25, 2003, Khodorkovsky was arrested.
Read. Everything is frank.
And everything is clear.
And after reading, imagine yourself at the head of the Russian government. And ask yourself, what would you do in this case with Khodorkovsky?
“In my opinion, the problem that Khodorkovsky posed to the authorities and the country is objective and, therefore, should be analyzed without emotion and moralizing that is inappropriate in the big economy and big politics.
The meaning of the chess game built by Khodorkovsky is extremely transparent: from a Russian billionaire, 99% of whose fortune lies in the wells and infrastructure of the oil industry, he planned to turn into a real billionaire, owning liquid billions in the West. The desire is understandable and not subject to discussion or condemnation.
The method is also clear: Khodorkovsky is trying to sell 40% of Yukos to an American consortium of oil companies for $25 billion. Another 13.6% of shares are traded on open markets. As a result, a controlling stake in Yukos comes into the possession of foreigners. More precisely, the controlling stake in Yukos ends up with an American consortium that buys 40% of the shares, since one can be sure that the remaining 10% plus one share has long been bought up by them.
What Khodorkovsky gets from the deal is clear. He solves his problem: he “cashes out” non-cash capital that exists in the form of infrastructure, and receives real dollars outside of Russia in return.
More interestingly, what will Russia get if the deal goes through? - I think Khodorkovsky is not a greedy person and will pay taxes on the transaction. Russia will receive, as a result, 8 billion dollars. The rest of the money will not get to Russia. That is, there is no talk of any “investment” here.
This is not an investment at all - it is Khodorkovsky who receives the money, and Yukos who receives the new owner. And those who claim that the authorities are allegedly “throwing away” profitable investors in the Yukos case confuse investments with a change of ownership.
But that's not the main thing. The nuance is that this is only the outer outline of the deal.
In fact, Khodorkovsky is not selling Yukos at all.
This is not difficult to verify: Yukos represents almost a third of the Russian oil industry. Income from oil exports alone, according to experts, at a price of $23.5 per barrel in income is 13-14%. But there is also income from internal taxation. In total, taking into account “allied companies”, that is, industries indirectly working for it, the oil industry brings in up to 30-40% of the country’s budget. Consequently, Yukos provides up to 10-15% of the budget. For comparison, defense costs amount to 13.5% percent, and against this background any science is not visible at all. Even if we take into account only export earnings, Yukos’ share of the budget is about five percent.
In practice, this means that power in Russia, if the deal goes through, passes to the new owner of Yukos, and Russia lives and exists solely by his will and with his permission, because power over 5-10% of the country’s budget is complete power over the country .
It is enough to imagine that a foreign owner - a normal business practice, by the way - will take and threaten to close Yukos. Not only will 100,000 Yukos workers take to the streets. They will also pull along millions of those who work for Yukos in other industries. The closure of Yukos means complete destabilization of the country, a return to hyperinflation and the final destruction of the economy.
In other words, the owners of Yukos will have in their hands a powerful lever for creating large-scale political crises at any desired moment, a lever for unprecedented pressure on the Russian government.
And the authorities will have nothing to oppose this pressure. It will be impossible to even nationalize this property, since - and this is correct - property is sacred - and the United States will receive the full moral and legal right to protect the property of its citizens by any means, including the military. The compensation will cost Russia much more than 25 billion, which in itself is a lot.
We must clearly understand that power over 5-10% of the budget is absolute power.
In other words, the notorious $25 billion in question is, therefore, not the price of Yukos - it is intermediary money for the acquisition
gaining power over Russia by a third force.
Apparently, Khodorkovsky prepared for this chess game for a long time and seriously.
The transition to Western accounting standards is certainly a bright and correct move. In any other situation he would have been welcome. However, in this case, this move was obviously forced and had a completely different goal: not a single Western company would even talk to Khodorkovsky without switching to a system that it understood, allowing them to evaluate what and how much. “Transparency” for Russia is in this case a propaganda side effect.
Within the framework of this scenario, it becomes clear why Khodorkovsky in practice realized Berezovsky’s blue dream - he bought up all or part of all opposition parties - Yabloko, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and even the Union of Right Forces. He carefully and competently distributed the roles: he himself, as a “democrat”, sponsored, of course, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces (the latter party, however, does not completely depend on him), and provided care for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation - in the order of “freedom of political views” - to his vice And everything else is calculated quite subtly: a really significant part of Yukos shares is already located abroad, the operation began on the eve of the elections, when it is especially easy to rock the public boat, especially with the help of such high professionals in this area as Yavlinsky and Zyuganov.
An equally strong move is to appoint an American citizen to head the “crisis management” headquarters, who would not be caught without a major international scandal. And the meaning of “crisis management” is transparent: its goal is not to overcome a crisis in business, but to create a political crisis in the country in order to force the Russian government to surrender.
... Objectively, in this party, the Russian government, the Russian authorities, Russia, are faced with a difficult choice: agree to the deal and, thereby, actually sell the sovereignty of Russia for 8-10 billion dollars or stop it by any means? - With this formulation of the question, it seems completely obvious that it is impossible to allow the implementation of the transaction conceived by Khodorkovsky under any circumstances. It must be stopped at any cost, because there is no greater loss for Russia than the loss of sovereignty.
Essentially, taking into account the fact that Yukos and, accordingly, control over the budget, can pass to a foreign owner “by itself,” regardless of the legal or non-legal actions of the authorities in relation to Khodorkovsky, Khodokovsky and those who stand behind him , leave the Russian authorities with only one way to prevent the deal: nationalize Yukos. And this is the least desirable course of action for the authorities: the nationalization of Yukos will obviously really set the country back for years and years, will decisively spoil the real investment climate and will really call into question Putin’s election for a second term. In other words, the nationalization of Yukos will lead to chaos.
This is the choice Khodorkovsky offered to the authorities: either maintaining Russia’s sovereignty at the cost of chaos and loss of momentum, or political peace now and loss of sovereignty forever.
In principle, this is a normal political situation when there is no choice between bad and good, but there is a choice between bad and very bad. It cannot be otherwise. That’s why politicians are paid to make this kind of choice...”
Mikhail Khodorkovsky- entrepreneur and public figure.
From 1997 to 2004, he was a co-owner and head of the Yukos oil company. In October 2003, he was arrested on charges of theft and tax evasion. At the time of his arrest, he was one of the richest people in the world, his fortune was estimated at $15 billion. In 2005, he was found guilty by a Russian court of fraud and other crimes. The Yukos company has undergone bankruptcy proceedings. In 2010-2011 he was sentenced due to new circumstances; taking into account subsequent appeals, the total term imposed by the court was 10 years and 10 months. In 2013, Khodorkovsky’s request for a pardon addressed to the President of the Russian Federation was granted. On December 21, 2013, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was released from the colony, and on the 22nd he flew to Germany.
Biography of Mikhail Khodorkovsky
In 1986 he graduated with honors from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. D. Mendeleev with a degree in industrial engineering.
In 1988 he graduated from the Institute of National Economy. G. V. Plekhanov, majoring in financier.
Career
- In 1987, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his comrades created the Intersectoral Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity of Youth (NTTM) at the Frunzensky District Committee of the Komsomol.
- NTTM was engaged in the import and sale of computers, the brewing of jeans, and the sale of alcoholic beverages.
- In 1989, the Frunze branch of the Housing and Social Bank of the USSR and NTTM established the CIB NTP (Commercial Innovation Bank of Scientific and Technological Progress). In 1990, CIB NTP, having purchased NTTM from the Moscow City Council, renamed itself the Interbank Association "MENATEP". Mikhail Khodorkovsky became chairman of the board of Menatep.
- In March 1992, Khodorkovsky was appointed president of the Fund for Promotion of Investments in the Fuel and Energy Complex with the rights of Deputy Minister of Fuel and Energy.
- In 1995, as a result of “shares-for-shares auctions,” Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his five partners became owners of 78% of the shares of the Yukos oil company. By the fall of 1996, MENATEP Bank took possession of 90% of the shares of YUKOS.
Yukos case
- On October 25, 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested on charges of embezzlement and tax evasion. On October 30, 2003, a 53% stake in YUKOS was arrested.
- In May 2005, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow found Khodorkovsky guilty of fraud, misappropriation of property, tax evasion and other crimes and sentenced him to 9 years in prison under a number of articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The Moscow City Court, by cassation ruling dated September 22, 2005, reduced the term to 8 years. As a result, the main oil-producing assets of the Yukos company became the property of the state oil company, and the Yukos company itself was subject to bankruptcy proceedings.
- At the end of 2006, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev were charged in a second criminal case. They are charged with committing crimes, liability for which is provided for in paragraphs. “a”, “b” part 3 art. 160, part 3 art. 174, part 4 art. 160 and part 4 art. 174-1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
- On March 3, 2009, the Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow began preliminary hearings on a new criminal case. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were charged with the fact that, as part of an organized group with the main shareholders of OJSC NK YUKOS and other persons, in the period before June 12, 1998, they stole shares of subsidiaries of OJSC Eastern Oil Company in the amount of 3.6 billion rubles, in 1998-2000 the shares of the subsidiaries of OJSC “Eastern Oil Company” were stolen for the same amount, and also in 1998-2003 they committed theft by appropriating oil from OJSC Samaraneftegaz, OJSC Yuganskneftegaz and OJSC. "Tomskneft" in the amount of more than 892.4 billion rubles and the legalization of part of these funds in 1998-2004 in the amount of 487.4 billion rubles and 7.5 billion dollars.
- On December 30, 2010, the court found Khodorkovsky and Lebedev guilty under Articles 160 and 174 Part 1 of the second and decided to sentence Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev to 14 years in prison on a cumulative basis with credit for previously served time.
Liberation
- On November 12, 2013, Khodorkovsky, having spent more than 10 years in prison and not admitting his guilt, sent a petition to the President of the Russian Federation for a pardon due to family circumstances.
- On December 19, 2013, Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference that Khodorkovsky, according to his request, would be pardoned in the near future. Putin explained Khodorkovsky's pardon on humanitarian grounds related to his mother's illness. The next morning the decree was signed, and Khodorkovsky was released. In total, the businessman spent more than 10 years in prison.
- On the morning of December 20, 2013, Vladimir Putin signed a decree on pardon. A few hours later, Khodorkovsky was released and escorted to St. Petersburg, Pulkovo Airport. That evening, on a private plane provided by the former head of the Federal Republic of Germany, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Khodorkovsky flew to Berlin.
- On the night of December 22, 2013, while in Berlin, Khodorkovsky gave his first free television interview to journalists from the Dozhd channel. At a large press conference in Berlin on December 22, Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced that after gaining freedom he had no plans to engage in business or politics or sponsor the Russian opposition; he intends to concentrate on social activities, including the release of political prisoners in Russia.
Khodorkovsky: video press conference
For ten years, Mikhail Khodorkovsky's wife Inna Valentinovna supported her husband while he was serving his sentence on charges of embezzlement and tax evasion. When Khodorkovsky was convicted, he was a co-owner and head of the Yukos oil company, and one of the richest people in the world, and while in prison, Mikhail Borisovich once again realized that the most important thing a person has is his family. Marriage to Inna is the second in the biography of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He married for the first time during his student years, when, like his first wife Elena Dobrovolskaya, he studied at the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. They were brought together by social work - Mikhail was the deputy secretary of the Komsomol committee, and Elena was a member of the Komsomol committee.
The son Pavel, whom Elena gave birth to, did not save the family from divorce - their life together did not last long, and they parted peacefully and without mutual reproaches. Khodorkovsky never forgot about his first family, he always supported his ex-wife and son financially, and helped Pavel get an education abroad.
In the photo - Mikhail Khodorkovsky with his wife and daughter
Khodorkovsky had an office romance with his second wife - Inna worked at the Menatep bank, which was headed by Mikhail Borisovich - she was an expert in foreign exchange transactions. The oligarch’s second wife spent her childhood in Medvedkovo, where she lived with her mother and sister in a communal apartment. Inna began dating Khodorkovsky when he was still married, they began to live together, were in no hurry to enter into an official marriage, and got married only after their daughter was born.
In the photo - Mikhail and Inna Khodorkovsky
Inna combined work with studying at the Moscow Art Institute, but after she married Khodorkovsky, she gave up both. In 1991, their first child was born - daughter Nastya, and eight years later twins appeared in the family - Gleb and Ilya. Their life together began in a rented apartment, then continued on Rublyovka in a holiday home, and they built their own house in Zhukovka only a few years later. Later, the Khodorkovskys acquired a mansion in the Old Arbat area.
While Mikhail was in charge of YUKOS, Inna took care of the house and raising children. The eldest daughter studied at an elite school, and the sons were still small. When their father was arrested, they were only four years old, and at the time Khodorkovsky was released in 2013, his children were already living and studying in Switzerland.
All the years of imprisonment, Mikhail Borisovich’s wife lived in constant fear and a state of uncertainty about the future. For ten years she went on dates with her husband, prepared packages for him, brought photos of her children and talked about the achievements of her growing children. Inna always said that Mikhail, whom she married at seventeen, is the most precious thing she has in her life.
When he was arrested, she was in a state of shock for two years and was kept on only sedatives. Inna Valentinovna saw an outlet in children, fear for whose future helped her find strength in herself and live on.
During this time, the eldest son Pavel from Khodorkovsky’s first marriage managed to get married and had a daughter, Diana. He lives in America and heads the Institute of Modern Russia.
In the photo - Khodorkovsky with his sons
A year after his release, Mikhail Borisovich and his family settled in Switzerland, where they received a residence permit. They live in the Swiss community of Rapperswil-Jona in the canton of St. Gallen, where they rented a villa overlooking Lake Zurich, and immediately after his release, Khodorkovsky flew to Germany, where he gave his first interview at a big press conference, in which he emphasized that he had no plans engage in politics and business, and plans to engage in social activities.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky still owns the Quadrum Atlantic SPC investment fund with assets worth two billion dollars, and Mikhail Borisovich’s total wealth as of the summer of 2016 was estimated at approximately five hundred million dollars.
Family
Born into a family of engineers. Boris Moiseevich Khodorkovsky, pensioner, was a street child as a child; worked as deputy chief technologist of the Kalibr plant; mother Marina Filippovna worked as an engineer at the same plant.
First marriage - with Elena Dobrovolskaya. According to Khodorkovsky, his first student marriage was unsuccessful, but he maintained a good relationship with his ex-wife.
Son Paul(born 1985), lives in the USA. In December 2009, Pavel’s daughter Diana was born.
Second marriage (since 1991) - Inna Valentinovna Khodorkovskaya(born in 1969), employee, at that time, of the MENATEP bank.
Daughter - Anastasia(born April 26, 1991) and two twins: Ilya And Gleb(born April 17, 1999). As of 2013, they live and study in Switzerland.
Biography
In 1970 I went to school and graduated in 1980.
In 1981 he entered the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology (MHTI) named after D.I. Mendeleev, who graduated in 1986 with a diploma in the specialty "technological engineer".
In parallel with his studies at the institute, he worked until November 1985 as a carpenter at the Etalon housing cooperative (housing cooperative). In 1986 he was elected a member of the Sverdlovsk district committee of the Komsomol.
In 1986-1987 he was deputy secretary of the Frunzensky district committee of the Komsomol (secretary - Sergei Monakhov). Was a member of the CPSU.
In 1987, together with Sergei Monakhov And Platon Lebedev organized at the Frunzensky district committee of the Komsomol the Center for Intersectoral Scientific and Technical Programs (TSMSTP) - the Youth Initiative Fund, which functioned in the system of NTTM ("scientific and technical creativity of youth") centers under the Komsomol and under the auspices of the State Committee for Science and Technology. He was appointed director of the TsMNTP under the Frunzensky district committee and remained in this position until April 1989.
TsMNTP was engaged in the import and sale of computers, the brewing of jeans, the sale of alcoholic beverages (including counterfeit cognac) and other businesses that at that time brought high profits. At the same time, the Center earned money from the so-called cashing out of funds.
In 1988, the total turnover of trade and intermediary operations of NTTM amounted to 80 million rubles. Subsequently, Khodorkovsky said that it was then that he earned his first big money - 160,000 rubles, which he received for a special development from the Institute of High Temperatures of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
However, Frankfurter Rundschau calls these transactions “transactions of a dubious nature with money intended for settlements between state-owned enterprises,” which, along with the import of computers and counterfeit cognac, as well as currency tricks, became the basis of Khodorkovsky’s wealth.
In 1988 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of National Economy (MINKh) named after. G.V. Plekhanov.
By the beginning of the 1990s, there were already more than 600 centers for scientific and technical creativity of youth in the USSR, and formally they were called upon to introduce new scientific and technical developments into production and disseminate scientific literature.
In 1989, the Frunze branch of the Housing and Social Bank of the USSR and NTTM established the CIB NTP (Commercial Innovation Bank of Scientific and Technological Progress).
In 1990, CIB NTP, having purchased NTTM from the Moscow City Council, renamed itself the Interbank Association "MENATEP" (short for "Interbank Association of Scientific and Technical Progress" or "Interindustry Scientific and Technical Programs"). Khodorkovsky became chairman of the board of Menatep, Nevzlin and Golubovich - deputy chairman of the board, Dubov - head of the department of subsidiary banks and the financial group.
In 1990, Menatep was one of the first commercial banks in Russia to receive a license from the State Bank of the USSR.
Menatep carried out active transactions with currency, and also sold its shares to individuals, using television advertising for these purposes. The sale of shares brought Menatep 2.3 million rubles, but the population who bought the shares did not receive any decent dividends.
Subsequently, Menatep’s connections with the authorities expanded. Khodorkovsky and Nevzlin became advisers to Russian Prime Minister Ivan Silaev, and also established relations with the Minister of Fuel and Energy Vladimir Lopukhin. Thanks to this, Menatep received permission to service the funds of the Ministry of Finance, the State Tax Service, and later the state company Rosvooruzheniye, which was engaged in the export of arms.
In March 1992, through the efforts of Lopukhin, Khodorkovsky was appointed president of the Fund for Promoting Investments in the Fuel and Energy Complex with the rights of Deputy Minister of Fuel and Energy. The Foundation has not implemented a single project. While running the foundation, Khodorkovsky met V.S. Chernomyrdin, in December 1992, became chairman of the Russian government.
In November 1992, he took part in the initiative group "Entrepreneurial Political Initiative" (EPI) Konstantina Zatulina.
In March 1993, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Fuel and Energy Yuri Shafranik(one of the Deputy Ministers of Fuel and Energy at that time was Alexander Samusev, who later went to work at MENATEP).
In 1993, Khodorkovsky was also a financial adviser to Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.
In April 1993, Khodorkovsky, Alexander Smolensky(Bank "Stolichny"), Vladimir Gusinsky("MOST-Bank") and Yuri Agapov(“Kredobank”) jointly established an open joint-stock company with the code name “Plastic Cards of Russia” to issue credit magnetic cards and to service settlements with foreign partners.
On March 30, 1995, he took part in a government meeting, where for the first time a proposal was made by a consortium of Russian banks for a loan to the government secured by federal stakes in privatized enterprises.
In July 1995, Khodorkovsky sent a letter to First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets with a proposal to give state ownership of 10% of the shares of MENATEP Bank in exchange for 45% of the shares of the state oil company Yukos Oil Company, which was in a state of crisis. This proposal was not accepted. accepted.
From September 1995 to May 1996, Khodorkovsky was chairman of the board of directors of ZAO ROSPROM. "Rosprom" is the holding company of MENATEP Bank, which managed the bank's industrial enterprises.
On November 9, 1995, a joint press conference between YUKOS and MENATEP was held, at which it was announced that the bank would supervise, on behalf of the state, both the investment competition and the loans-for-shares auction of the oil company.
November 26, 1995 President of Inkombank Igor Vinogradov, President of Russian Credit Bank Anatoly Malkin and the chairman of the board of Alfa Bank made a statement “On the financial problems of privatization, the relationship between the MENATEP bank and some government structures.” The statement said that Inkombank, Russian Credit and Alfa Bank are ready to unite into a consortium and compete with Menatep.
In March 1996, Khodorkovsky took part in a meeting of a group of bankers (Vladimir Gusinsky, Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Vinogradov, Alexander Smolensky, Khodorkovsky) with President Boris Yeltsin and Anatoly Chubais, which resulted in the creation of an analytical group at Yeltsin's election headquarters, headed by Chubais.
In April 1996, a team of managers of the MENATEP bank, headed by Khodorkovsky, joined the management of NK YUKOS.
In May 1996, Khodorkovsky was appointed chairman of the board of JSC ROSPROM.
On April 12, 1996, Khodorkovsky left the post of chairman of the board of MENATEP bank, retaining the post of chairman of the board of directors of the bank.
On April 20, 1996, Khodorkovsky was appointed first vice-president of JSC NK YUKOS (president - S. Muravlenko). He was subordinate to eight vice-presidents in areas (two other vice-presidents had the same number of vice-presidents subordinate to him). Khodorkovsky was in charge of oil refining, chemistry and petrochemicals, domestic sales and exports, investment policy, finance and work with securities.
On June 4, 1996, Khodorkovsky was elected chairman of the board of directors of OJSC NK YUKOS..
In July 1996, after the presidential elections, Khodorkovsky received an invitation to join the newly formed government, but did not accept it.
On July 25, 1996, he received gratitude for his active participation in organizing and conducting the election campaign of President Yeltsin.
In October 1996, he was included in the Council on Banking Activities under the Government of the Russian Federation.
In January 1998, Khodorkovsky became one of the initiators of the creation of the oil holding LLC YUKSI, which included the oil companies YUKOS and Sibneft.
On June 5, 1998, Khodorkovsky, together with a number of leading Russian financial and industrial figures, signed the “Appeal from Representatives of Russian Business” regarding the economic situation in the Russian Federation (that is, the impending default).
In September 1998, together with a number of executives of leading oil companies, he signed (on behalf of YUKOS-Moscow and the Eastern Oil Company) an appeal to the Government of the Russian Federation proposing a version of an anti-crisis program.
As a result of the default in August 1998, MENATEP Bank actually went bankrupt.
On May 18, 1999, the Central Bank deprived Bank MENATEP of its license to carry out banking operations.
In October 1999, Khodorkovsky was relieved of his duties as a member of the board of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy of the Russian Federation. In October 1999, the Ministry of Fuel and Energy announced its intention to file a claim for protection of reputation against Khodorkovsky. The reason was Khodorkovsky’s interview with the Vedomosti newspaper on October 4, 1999, in which Khodorkovsky announced the Ministry of Fuel and Energy’s intention to “create a reserve fund of the ministry with an export quota of five million tons” in order to “give it to whoever needs it.”
Since 2000 - President of NK "YUKOS".
Since October 2000 - member of the Entrepreneurship Council under the Government of the Russian Federation.
In November 2000, he was elected as a member of the bureau of the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP).
In March 2002, he was one of the initiators of a letter from 30 businessmen and deputies of the chambers of the Federal Assembly to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which they expressed dissatisfaction with the refusal of the Russian Pension Fund and representatives of the government’s social block to demonstratively comply with the agreements reached in 2001 as part of a discussion between employers and the Pension Fund on pension reform.
On February 19, 2003, at a meeting between Putin and representatives of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Khodorkovsky told the president that, according to Russian entrepreneurs, about $30 billion was spent on corruption in 2002, which is 10-12% of the country's GDP.
At this meeting, there was also a public spat between the president and Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky hoped to find understanding from the president regarding Rosneft’s purchase of the assets of Severnaya Neft, but he ran into a harsh answer like: “How did you privatize YUKOS?”
According to “leaks” from the president’s entourage, Putin also did not like the fact that Khodorovsky, the only one of the meeting participants, was wearing a sweater (and, accordingly, no tie).
On April 7, 2003, Khodorkovsky stated: “I give my political preferences to the SPS and Yabloko and am ready to direct personal funds to finance them.” He planned to encourage democratic leaders to create a political bloc in 2003-2004, led by Vladimir Ryzhkov, based on Yabloko, the Union of Right Forces and independent democrats.
On July 2, 2003, in Moscow, the chairman of the board of directors of the Menatep MFO, Platon Lebedev, was arrested on charges of theft in 1994 of a 20% stake in Apatit OJSC, previously owned by the state, in the amount of $283.142 million.
On July 4, 2003, Khodorkovsky was summoned to the Prosecutor General's Office to testify in this case together with his former deputy Nevzlin. After leaving the Prosecutor General's Office, Khodorkovsky said that the investigation was not interested in issues related to the activities of the YUKOS company.
On July 5, 2003, Khodorkovsky, speaking about the reasons for the actions of the Prosecutor General's Office against YUKOS, said: “My opinion is that we are dealing with a struggle for power that has begun between various wings in the inner circle of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. This is the beginning of a struggle for power that will have to end after elections in March. It is absolutely clear today, at least for me, that Putin will win and get a second term. But who will make up the second echelon of the team is, of course, a question for today.”
On July 9, 2003, the Prosecutor General's Office began checking the request of a State Duma deputy Mikhail Bugera, who claimed that Yukos underpaid taxes in 2002.
At the same time, at the RUIE bureau, Khodorkovsky said that under no circumstances should one “beg” the authorities to soften Lebedev’s fate and stop the prosecution of YUKOS by the prosecutor’s office, whose actions he called illegitimate and even “an attack by bandits in uniform.” The main thing is to show the president that raids by security forces on large companies call into question the country’s current credit and investment ratings.
On October 25, 2003, Khodorkovsky was detained at Tolmachevo airport in Novosibirsk, sent on a special flight to Moscow and placed in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center.
On the same day, the Prosecutor General's Office charged him under several articles of the Russian Criminal Code.
He was accused of stealing someone else's property by deception as part of an organized group on a large scale; malicious failure to comply with a court decision that has entered into legal force by representatives of a commercial organization; causing property damage to owners through deception, in the absence of signs of theft committed by an organized group on a large scale; evasion of taxes from an organization on an especially large scale by a group of persons by prior conspiracy, repeatedly; evasion of an individual from paying tax or insurance contribution to state extra-budgetary funds, committed on an especially large scale; falsification of official documents, committed repeatedly; waste of other people's property.
In 2004 he refused to finance the presidential campaign Irina Khakamada(“I respect and highly value Irina Khakamada, but unlike my partner Leonid Nevzlin, I refused to finance her presidential campaign, because I saw alarming outlines of untruth in this campaign. For example: no matter how you treat Putin, you cannot - because it is unfair - blame him in the tragedy "Nord-Ost.").
A year later, in the summer of 2005, Vedomosti published a second article by Mikhail Khodorkovsky entitled “Left Turn,” which was a continuation of the spring 2004 publication.
On January 12, 2005, Khodorkovsky confirmed the information that he had transferred the right to dispose of 60% of the shares of Group Menatep and its main asset - YUKOS - to Leonid Nevzlin.
On January 23, 2005, the Federal Bailiff Service announced that all funds of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in their personal accounts in Russian banks were seized by court order to pay off debts.
The court found Khodorkovsky and Lebedev guilty:
- in double fraud - taking over 44% of the shares of OJSC NIUIF in 1995 (Article 147 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR) and returning from the budget a tax overpayment of 407 million rubles. in 1999-2000 (Article 159 part 3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
- in malicious failure to comply with a court decision - for failure to return shares of NIUIF contrary to the decision of the Moscow arbitration in 1997 and for failure to return 20% of the shares of Apatit according to the decision of the same arbitration in 1998 (Article 315 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
- in the appropriation of proceeds from the export of apatite concentrate in 1995-2002 (Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
- in causing damage to other owners of Apatit by understating its profits by 6 billion rubles. (Article 165 part 3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation)
- in non-payment by Yukos traders registered in preferential tax zones, by 17 billion rubles. in 1999-2000 (Article 198 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
- in tax evasion (Khodorkovsky - by 54.5 million rubles, Lebedev - by 7.27 million rubles) (Article 198 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Khodorkovsky was also found guilty of misappropriation and embezzlement by transferring 2.648 billion rubles to the structures of Vladimir Gusinsky in 1999-2000. (Article 160 part 3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were released from punishment due to the expiration of the statute of limitations on charges of fraudulent acquisition of 20% of the shares of Apatit OJSC through an investment competition, which was won by Volna JSC in 1994.
On May 31, 2005, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were each sentenced to 9 years in prison in a general regime colony.
At the end of 2006, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were transferred from colonies to a pre-trial detention center in connection with the investigation of a new criminal case against them. Businessmen were accused of laundering 450 billion rubles and 7.5 billion dollars between 1998 and 2004. Both insist they are innocent.
On February 5, 2007, the Prosecutor General's Office brought new charges against Khodorkovsky for money laundering and theft by embezzlement. Similar charges were brought against Lebedev on the same day. The amount in question was about $23–25 billion. According to Schmidt’s lawyer, Khodorkovsky said that he was ready to refute all charges, but he would testify only on the condition that violations of his rights cease, in particular, if he is transferred to Moscow: “Charges It’s impossible to call it “absurd”: it’s too mild. The accusation is crazy simply because it’s impossible for anyone, anywhere, and ever to steal that amount. This is more than the company’s revenue,” Schmidt said.
In August 2007, the Federal Court of Switzerland satisfied the claims of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, as well as a number of companies associated with them, and unblocked their bank accounts in this country for a total of 200 million francs (more than $166 million). The court also spoke out against further provision of legal assistance to Russia in the Yukos case, since it considered the criminal prosecution of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev to be politically motivated. This is the first decision in the practice of a Swiss federal court to refuse legal assistance to a foreign state.
On October 15, 2007, ten days before Khodorkovsky was halfway through his eight-year sentence, he was reprimanded for not holding his hands behind his back as prison rules dictate when returning from a walk. The reprimand deprived Khodorkovsky of the right to apply for parole.
On November 7, 2007, a letter from Khodorkovsky was made public, in which he called on citizens to be sure to come to the State Duma elections on December 2, 2007 and vote “for any of the small parties that do not cause contempt.” According to Khodorkovsky, this will be a signal from everyone to the authorities: “I am not a slave and not a cattle.”
On July 16, 2008, a petition for parole was filed with the Ingodinsky District Court of Chita on behalf of Khodorkovsky's defense.
On August 21, 2008, the district court began to consider the petition. The judge denied Khodorkovsky parole, citing the fact that he had an outstanding fine, did not receive any incentives from the colony, and deviated from the work prescribed by the management of the correctional institution.
In September 2008, Khodorkovsky, through his lawyers, gave a written interview to The Moscow Times, in which he supported the entry of Russian troops into South Ossetia and approved the recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia ("It is obvious that Saakashvili, relying on the support of the West, decided to start a risky military operation without US approval and overestimated the chances of receiving support").
At the beginning of October 2008, the court extended Khodorkovsky's detention in the pre-trial detention center until February 2, 2009.
On October 8, 2008, Khodorkovsky was sent by the leadership of the Chita pre-trial detention center to a punishment cell for 12 days. The reason for the penalty was an interview he gave to writer Boris Akunin for Esquire magazine.
On February 24, 2009, lawyers visited Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, who were brought for trial in their second criminal case of embezzlement and money laundering from Chita to Moscow.
On March 3, 2009, preliminary hearings in the case of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev began in the Khamovnichesky Court of Moscow.
On March 31, 2009, the trial began. The defense of the defendants demanded that almost all former and current Russian officials of the first echelon who, in their opinion, were directly related to the commercial activities of the Yukos Oil Company, as well as the heads of security and law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation of both criminal cases of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, be summoned to court.
Among the defense witnesses were Putin and Sechin, with whom Khodorkovsky, as he himself explained to the court, personally coordinated all his commercial projects, oil prices, fuel consumers and methods of transportation.
According to the defense, all of the listed witnesses knew about the YUKOS transactions, which the investigation called crimes, had the opportunity to stop them and must explain to the court why they did not do this. The accused, in turn, added that the “defense witnesses” were not only aware of their activities, but also helped them in the sale of oil, which the investigation calls “stolen.”
On April 7, 2009, the state prosecution began announcing the indictment. The defendants were accused of being part of an organized group in 1998-2003, committing theft by appropriating large volumes of oil from the subsidiaries of the oil-producing joint-stock companies of NK YUKOS - Samaraneftegaz, Yuganskneftegaz and Tomskneft VNK - amounting to more than 892 billion rubles. and in the legalization of money received from the sale of stolen oil in an amount exceeding 487 billion rubles. and $7.5 billion.
All these crimes, according to investigators, were committed by an organized group, which, in addition to the defendants, included Leonid Nevzlin, Dmitry Gololobov, Vasily Aleksanyan, Mikhail Brudno, and Vasily Shakhnovsky. According to prosecutor Lakhtin, on the instructions of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Leonid Nevzlin was supposed to ensure the neutralization and counteraction of business competitors.
On May 21, 2009, it became known that the panel of judges of the European Court of Human Rights unanimously recognized as justified Khodorkovsky’s complaint against the Russian Federation regarding his illegal detention and arrest in Novosibirsk in October 2003, and the subsequent decisions of the Basmanny and Moscow City Courts, which extended his imprisonment for the time of investigation and consideration of his case in court on the merits, that appeals in courts against decisions on arrest and extension of detention" were considered with unacceptable delays", and that the applicant was detained in "degrading conditions human dignity".
By majority vote (the representative of Russia was against Anatoly Kovler) The European Court recognized the validity of the applicant Khodorkovsky’s complaint to the extent that his “criminal prosecution was politically motivated.”
June 15, 2009 Dmitry Dovgy(former head of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation) confirmed Aleksanyan's long-standing statement that the latter was offered a deal - freedom in exchange for testimony on Khodorkovsky. Dovgy himself was in custody at that time on charges of bribery.
On September 6, 2009, the German magazine Focus published an interview with Khodorkovsky, in which he expressed confidence that the second trial would end in life imprisonment for him (“They will try to keep me in prison until I die”).
In January 2010, Khodorkovsky and the writer were awarded the Znamya magazine prize for “Dialogues,” published in the 10th issue of the magazine for 2009.
On December 30, 2010, the court found Khodorkovsky and Lebedev guilty under Articles 160 and 174 Part 1 in the second Yukos case and decided to sentence Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev to 14 years in prison on a cumulative basis with credit for previously served time.
Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Daniil Granin, Oleg Dorman, Alexander Arkhangelsky, Evgeniy Yasin, Sergei Bogdanchikov, Leonid Polezhaev and many others.
On February 14, 2011, an interview with Natalia Vasilyeva, press secretary of the Khamovnichesky court, in which she argued that the judge “consulted and listened to the opinion of the Moscow City Court” and the sentence was imposed on Danilkin against his will. The judge called this statement slander, and the Moscow City Court declared provocation.
By cassation ruling of the judicial panel for criminal cases of the Moscow City Court dated May 24, 2011, the verdict of the Khamovnichesky District Court in relation to Khodorkovsky and Lebedev was changed and their punishment was reduced to 13 years in prison for each, to be served in a general regime colony.
On May 27, 2011, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev filed petitions for parole with the Preobrazhensky District Court of Moscow, since the articles imputed to them provide for such an opportunity after serving half of the prison term, and out of the assigned 13 years they had served more than seven and a half. The court left the petitions without consideration.
In June 2011, Khodorkovsky was transferred to correctional colony No. 7 in the city of Segezha in Karelia and enrolled in a detachment that is engaged in work to ensure the life of the colony. After his release, Khodorkovsky spoke about his stay in the colony:
“Where I sat, exemplary order reigned. They began to restore it, as I was told, a month before my appearance. The general came to personally select a workplace for me, over which hung a video surveillance camera... And when they transferred me, they moved it.”
On February 24, 2012, lawyers for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev filed a joint supervisory appeal against the verdict in their second case with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
In May 2012, a judge of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation A. Voronov refused to satisfy the supervisory appeal, but on July 24 it became known that the Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation Vyacheslav Lebedev canceled Voronov's decision and initiated supervisory proceedings in the case.
On August 2, 2012, it became known that Khodorkovsky turned to the Russian Business Ombudsman with a request to conduct a public examination of the second criminal case. The letter indicated that his sentence and that of Platon Lebedev had become a “model” for a number of similar cases, and therefore entrepreneurs operating in Russia need to be aware of the risks facing them.
Khodorkovsky asks Titov to determine his attitude to the validity of the second criminal case from a legal and economic position, and to take the necessary and possible steps to overturn the verdict and release those convicted in this case.
In response, Titov suggested that Khodorkovsky officially, according to the regulations, contact the center of public procedures “Business against Corruption.” “The procedure for working at the Center involves your official application, a legal audit and the conclusion of the Public Council,” Titov explained to Khodorkovsky.
On December 20, 2012, the Presidium of the Moscow City Court, having considered the case in a supervisory manner, reduced the sentences of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev from 13 to 11 years.
This was motivated by the reclassification of the charges in connection with the liberalization of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In addition, the Presidium of the Moscow City Court excluded from the charges the indication of money laundering in the amount of more than 2 billion rubles, considering it too imputed.
Also, due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, the court terminated criminal prosecution for one of the episodes of tax evasion. In 2013, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, having considered a new supervisory complaint, reduced the term of imprisonment by another 2 months.
As a result, Lebedev should be released on May 2, 2014, Khodorkovsky on August 25, 2014.
On December 19, 2013, Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference that Khodorkovsky, according to his request, would be pardoned in the near future.
Putin explained Khodorkovsky's pardon on humanitarian grounds related to his mother's illness. The next morning the decree was signed, and Khodorkovsky was released. In total, the businessman spent more than 10 years in prison, according to accurate press estimates - 3,709 days.
Khodorkovsky was released so hastily that he was not given a release certificate, nor was he given time to change his prisoner’s suit to civilian clothes. He left the colony in Segezha in an official car of the Federal Penitentiary Service, which proceeded to the Reception House of the Federal Penitentiary Service, and from there to the Petrozavodsk airport.
There, a standard Tu-134 plane was waiting for him, on which Khodorkovsky arrived at St. Petersburg Pulkovo airport, where he was released by a convoy. From Pulkovo on a private Cessna plane provided by the former head of the German Foreign Ministry Hans-Dietrich Genscher, flew to Berlin.
In a special statement from Khodorkovsky, distributed upon his arrival in Berlin, it was clarified that the question of admitting guilt was not raised in the petition for pardon due to family circumstances, sent to Putin on November 12.
The release of Khodorkovsky was welcomed by the authorities of the USA, Great Britain, Germany, and the European Union.
On the night of December 22, 2013, while in Berlin, Khodorkovsky gave his first television interview in freedom to journalists from the Dozhd channel and Mikhail Zygar.
At a large press conference in Berlin at the Berlin Wall Museum at the former Checkpoint Charlie on December 22, Khodorkovsky announced that after gaining freedom he had no plans to engage in business or politics or sponsor the Russian opposition; he intends to concentrate on social activities, including the release of political prisoners in Russia.
In March 2014, Khodorkovsky settled in the Swiss community of Rapperswil-Jona in the canton of St. Gallen. In this place, he rented a villa overlooking Lake Zurich for 11.5 thousand francs a month. Received a residence permit in Switzerland.
On March 9, 2014, he spoke in Kyiv on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, where he criticized the Russian authorities, and called those whom Russian federal channels call “Ukrainian nationalists” “wonderful people who defended their freedom.”
On September 20, 2014, Khodorkovsky announced the launch of an updated political project, “Open Russia,” which he was involved in before he was imprisoned by a court decision.
Rumors (scandals)
On June 26, 1998, the mayor of Nefteyugansk was killed Vladimir Petukhov. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the perpetrators of the murder are considered to be former special forces soldiers, Evgeniy Reshetnikov And Gennady Tsegelnik.
The organizer of the 2007 assassination attempt was found by the court to be the former head of the internal security department of the YUKOS company. Alexey Pichugin. Currently, Tsegelnik, Reshetnikov and Pichugin are in prison.
Another defendant, YUKOS co-owner Leonid Nevzlin, whom the Prosecutor General's Office considers the customer, is currently abroad. It is inaccessible to Russian justice. The investigation failed to prove Khodorkovsky's involvement in the mayor's murder. However, many media outlets directly accused Khodorkovsky of murder.
Thus, according to a number of media reports, the mayor of Nefteyugansk was the first to openly oppose YUKOS, demanding that the oligarchs return unpaid taxes to the city. For this, according to investigators, reprisals were committed against him.
On June 28, 2005, a “letter of fifty” was published in the Izvestia newspaper as an advertisement.- “Appeal from cultural figures, scientists, and members of the public in connection with the sentence imposed on the former leaders of NK YUKOS,” expressing support for the guilty verdict. The authors of the letter expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that “the voices of those who doubt the fairness of the decisions made have been heard with renewed vigor,” and the discussion of the verdict, in their opinion, “is in the nature of discrediting the entire judicial system, the state and society and calls into question the foundations of law and order in the country ".
On September 11, 2009, four years after the publication of the “letter of fifty,” the famous figure skater Irina Rodnina stated that she did not sign this letter and condemned the very form of such treatment.
Another of the signatories, Anastasia Volochkova, on February 2, 2011, in an interview with Radio Liberty, she explained her signature as a misunderstanding, as a result of which United Russia was misled about the contents of the letter. He expressed regret about his signature on this letter Alexander Buynov: “I have a feeling that I got into trouble then. In any case, there are crazy actions that are embarrassing... If the Radio Liberty interview is enough for me to renounce, I’m ready to say it now.”
Columnist of the Rosbalt Information Agency Alla Yaroshinskaya connects the release of Khodorkovsky not with the possibility of a boycott by Western countries of the upcoming 2014 Olympics in Sochi, but with the likely exchange of Khodorkovsky for the release of two Russian intelligence officers imprisoned in Germany.
In April 2014, Mikhail Khodorkovsky opened a “congress of Russian and Ukrainian intelligentsia” in Kyiv., which has already been called the “congress of the fifth column.”
Opposition politicians, liberal journalists and writers gathered in Kyiv with the goal of “developing in two days of work a “road map” for the reconciliation of Russia and Ukraine. Among the participants in the congress were oppositionist Boris Nemtsov, an “anti-Crimean” State Duma deputy, a poet, a political scientist, and others. media persons.
In November 2014, Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced that he had agreed with a blogger to establish a “bonus for victims of the Russian judicial and law enforcement system.”
In December 2014, when asked how much money he had left, Khodorkovsky said he has a fortune of more than $100 million, and the money is in Swiss banks. Moreover, Khodorkovsky admitted that in Russia his money is considered “stolen from the state.”
However, in April 2015 it became known that the ex-head of Yukos and his close business partners own assets worth a total of $2 billion. Forbes magazine reported this.
It turns out that Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, Vladimir Dubov and Mikhail Brudno control six trust funds from the island of Guernsey that own the Quadrum Atlantic SPC fund.
In turn, this fund is managed by Quadrum Global, which owns large real estate properties in the United States. According to Forbes, Khodorkovsky and partners own offices and nine hotels in the United States in New York, Chicago, Orlando and Miami Beach.
November 20, 2015 in Vienna On November 20, the premiere of the opera “Khodorkovsky” took place in Vienna at the Siren Opera House.
“The performance is based on the “royal drama” between Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Putin and covers the time period from 1989 to 2013. The main part of the libretto was written back in 2013 before the sudden release of the former head of Yukos from prison.”, - reported on the website of the ex-head of YUKOS.
In January 2016, a scandal broke out around the photograph on RuNet., where the producer, known for his pro-state position, Joseph Prigogine and his wife is a singer Valeria were photographed in company with the ex-head of YUKOS Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy.
Khodorkovsky himself, posting a photo on his Instagram, called this meeting “pleasant”: “Pleasant random meetings... But there is no need to build a conspiracy theory.”
It turned out that the ex-head of YUKOS is currently in London, where producer Prigozhin came on tour with his wife.
Criticism immediately erupted on the Internet, both towards Prigozhin and Valery from patriotic Runet users, and towards Venediktov and Khodorkovsky from the liberal audience.
At the end of January 2016 it became known that Khodorkovsky will sponsor the non-systemic opposition in the parliamentary elections in 2016.
The list of candidates for State Duma deputies, who will receive financial assistance from former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky as part of the Open Elections project, will include the entire spectrum of opposition - from defenders of the rights of truckers to associates of Alexei Navalny.
In the forefront, an opposition activist, a defendant in the “Bolotnaya case”, who was included in the amnesty, has already declared her desire to receive the support of the ex-head of YUKOS.
In February 2016, Interpol put Mikhail Khodorkovsky on the wanted list. in the case of the murder of the mayor of Nefteyugansk Vladimir Petukhov.
Khodorkovsky himself said that he is not worried about being wanted by Interpol. He is confident that Switzerland will not extradite him to Russia.
For the second time in recent years, Vladimir Putin spoke out on the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and for the second time accused him of involvement in the murders. In France, after negotiations with a boring set of old geopolitical chips (your Renault, our AvtoVAZ, our South Stream, your EDF, our Gazprom, etc.), Vladimir Putin, answering a journalist’s question, compared Mikhail Khodorkovsky with gangster Al Capone and the creator of the financial pyramid Bernard Medoff. Well, to this I have already added murder charges.
It must be said that over the seven years that the “YUKOS case” has been dragging on, official and unofficial explanations of the true reason why Mikhail Khodorkovsky is in prison have been constantly adjusted.
Let me remind you that the initial claims against the YUKOS company were formulated within the framework of the “Apatit case”. It was about violations of the law in the privatization deal, or more precisely, about the failure of the YUKOS company to fulfill the investment program, which was included in the conditions of privatization. Such conditions, as well as their non-fulfillment, were the standard norm for the privatization of attractive state property.
However, at that time Platon Lebedev was also a defendant in the case. When it came to the arrest of Khodorkovsky, Russia's largest businessman, it became clear that Apatit alone was not enough. There was an accusation of tax evasion. Which was very modern, because the problem of transfer prices was acute: minimizing taxes through transfer schemes was a common practice of commodity magnates and not only caused huge damage to the budget, but also set a corrupt model of tax administration (“one can do it, others can’t?”).
But since transfer prices were a common practice, in semi-official comments Kremlin sources made it clear that the issue was not taxes, of course, but that Khodorkovsky decided to get involved in politics and thereby violated the “informal agreement.” It was also very modern. At that time, the topic of “equidistance between the oligarchs” was in vogue: they say, now it’s not like before, and the oligarchs can easily do business, but they should not get involved in politics and privatize the Russian statehood.
But the theme of “equidistance” faded over time. They were not all equidistant and not at an equal distance, but in the place of those who were distant were those who were equally close. It became awkward to talk about “equidistance” with the same pathos. And in the Khodorkovsky case, another novelty emerged: “He was actually preparing a coup d’etat.” “Informed sources” spoke exactly these words. Allegedly, he decided to bribe deputies so that they would transfer the right to appoint a prime minister and form a government to the Duma, as a result of which the popularly elected president would be left with a rusty trough! An attempt on the state system, but out of love for humanity, he was convicted of tax evasion.
However, as the “vertical of power” became stronger, and the “dictatorship of law” became more and more comfortable with its dictatorship, a seditious thought arose: maybe Khodorkovsky was right in his plans? And it is still unknown in which case the state is “upside down” more - in this one, where the Duma approves and removes the prime minister, or in this one, where there is a dictatorship in law?
“Sources,” meanwhile, were already telling a new version of the crimes of the head of YUKOS. It was said like this: “He began to do something that should not have been done.” Exactly these words. At the same time, the interlocutor’s face took on some special, solemnly withdrawn expression. Impatient questions were answered with a dry answer: “He started buying the FSB.”
This was said in a tone that excluded further questions. But a swarm of these questions crowded into my head. I really wanted to know, firstly, what did Khodorkovsky want from the FSB? So that, for example, the FSB deals only with its constitutional duties, does not collect information about commercial structures and does not send secret representatives-informants there? So that it doesn’t help fight political competitors and doesn’t establish surveillance on journalists? Or did he offer the security officers money so that they would not have to protect the furniture business and Chinese smuggling, which some of its former employees indiscriminately accused the FSB of? Or did he just finally ask for dirt on Vladimir Putin?
The second question that tormented me: was Khodorkovsky successful or not successful in “buying the FSB”? If successful, then one can understand Vladimir Putin, who had no choice but to lock up the seducer in a distant tower in order to return the lost Lubyanka sheep to the bosom of incorruptible government service. And if not successfully, then why is Khodorkovsky in prison? Because he's a fool? But they don’t give you eight years for this.
However, now Khodorkovsky is not being tried for this again. And because he stole all the oil. But Vladimir Putin still did not communicate this vivid version to foreigners. However, the idea that he wanted to convey to them, comparing Khodorkovsky at the same time with Al Capone and Bernard Medoff, in the context of the history of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s different wines becomes more understandable. He wanted to say that Mikhail Khodorkovsky is in prison, although, of course, not for what he was imprisoned for, but for what is necessary, and any element of the crime that you remember, an analogy with any criminal you know - everything will do. It doesn't matter to us. In our country, if a person is in prison, it means he has something to do with it. Vladimir Putin tried to convey this idea to stupid foreigners in the following diplomatic phrase: “Everything that happens here happens within the framework of the current legislation.” Yeah, there's no better way to say it.
But why is Mikhail Khodorkovsky in prison? - the persistent reader will ask. Well, today, apparently, for hopelessly ruining the biography of Vladimir Putin. Because it is clear that in any history textbook and in any encyclopedia, where Vladimir Putin will be given even only two paragraphs, there will be a place in them for Mikhail Khodorkovsky. That is why, with every question from journalists about him, in the face of Mr. Putin, under the mask of trained calm, a shadow of raging, uncooling frenzy is discerned.
And how would you react if you knew in advance that there, far beyond your limit, where everything should come to its exact denominators, find its true weight and its final, unchangeable features, this hated, damned question: why was Mikhail Khodorkovsky in prison? And you, having already answered it a thousand times in different ways, will remain powerless before it forever.