Putin Says He Doesn’t Regret Pardoning Mikhail Khodorkovsky
(Bloomberg) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said he doesn’t regret pardoning the former billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky who was freed almost a year ago after a decade of imprisonment.
“I don’t regret anything,” Putin said in an answer to a question by Lifenews at his annual media conference in Moscow today. “I did everything absolutely correctly.”
Putin said he released the former owner of Yukos Oil Co. on humanitarian grounds because his mother was terminally ill. He said Khodorkovsky is free as a Russian citizen to run for public office in his homeland.
Once Russia’s richest man with a fortune of $15 billion at the time of his imprisonment in 2003, Khodorkovsky is seeking to galvanize the faltering opposition to Putin’s 15-year rule from his base in Switzerland. Khodorkovsky says he’s undeterred by the president’s public approval ratings of more than 80 percent after months of standoff with the U.S. and the European Union over the crisis in Ukraine.
Almost a year into his freedom, Khodorkovsky insists the tide is turning against Putin as the Russian economy heads into recession. The Russian ruble has lost about 45 percent of its value against the dollar so far this year as oil has fallen and sanctions were imposed by the U.S. and the EU following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
“Putin has far less room to maneuver financially, which creates difficulties for him, and as a result the cost of any mistakes he may make could be critical,” Khodorkovsky, 51, said in an interview in Zurich last week. “For Putin, even $120 a barrel for oil is a problem because, with his system of rule, he can’t survive without the revenue from raw materials growing every year.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Corcoran in Moscow at jcorcoran13@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elisa Martinuzzi at emartinuzzi@bloomberg.net Tony Halpin, Andrea Dudik
