Well, this isn't going to win him friends in high places in Moscow. Not that ex-billionaire oil man Mikhail Khodorkovsky had any to begin with.
Speaking to a jam-packed Oxford Union at Oxford University on April 27, Khodo as he is known, said its time for regime change in Russia. Doesn't he know how loaded those two words are in the lexicon of Anglo-American foreign policy? Regime change is needed in Voldemort's Russia, a term of endearment his think tank Open Russia has reserved for Vladimir Putin.
"Regime change, whenever and however it comes about, will necessitate a transition to fair elections," he said. "This transition must be preceded by the formation of independent political parties and the enabling of free election campaigning, which is impossible under current laws and enforcement practices. The reform of the political system must pave the way for free elections, rather than arise in consequence of the latter."
Then, as if walking unarmed into a dark cave full of mother bears with newborn cubs, he basically says he is creating a new Russian government. "My colleagues and I are assembling a team in accordance with the goals of the transition period," he said, as if notifying someone that he has a rolodex of pro-West bureaucrats on call.
It is no mystery that Khodorkovsky hates Putin. The Putin government appropriated his multi-billion dollar oil firm Yukos, and basically sold it for scraps to
Khodorkovsky was released in 2014. In a sort of bizarro Peter Pan twist, the deal on this oil pirate's freedom meant he had to leave the Motherland and never return, the same deal Pan gave Captain Hook in Neverland. Only it came with a twist: Khodo could not be involved in political office. Lobbying others in political office outside of Russia, on the other hand...that was not part of the deal.
Khodorkovsky has become a one-man gang; the poster child of the Russian capitalist burned by the KGB man. To the Western world, he is a super hero. It's a wonder he made it out of Siberia alive.
Khodorkovsky currently has his hand in pro-Democracy think tanks like the Institute of Modern Russia and Open Russia. They don't hate Russia. They just hate Putin and the United Russia party that's run the country since the Soviet Union was dismantled in 1991.
Nonetheless, most of his time is spent with lawyers and promoting his view in public speaking engagements that Putin's time is up.
His call for "regime change" inside the hallowed halls of the British intelligentsia is a brave choice of words. He must know that Putin is no fan of American-led regime change in the Middle East, and that the Kremlin is likely to believe that Washington at least gave verbal support to those who kicked Viktor Yanukovych from the Ukraine presidency in February 2014. His immediate replacement was Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a name who only months prior came up in leaked telephone conversations between a State Department official and the U.S. Embassy in Kiev saying that "Yats" was "the guy" to fix Ukraine and get it out of Russia's back pocket.
The former oil man has a lot on his plate. Most of it is indigestible Putin grub and Khodo is looking for a waiter to bring him something more appetizing.
On April 20, an international arbitration panel in The Hague overturned an award of more than $50 billion to Yukos shareholders. It was the largest ever award in international arbitration and Russia's government won. To Khodorkovsky it means Putin is winning again and that's got to sting.
The panel's ruling is unlikely to end there. Khodorkovsky and his shareholders have been trying to recover damages from Russia in various courts around the world, claiming that the government expropriated Yukos for political reasons and not for financial fraud.
Khodorkovsky is as motivated to clear his name as he is getting his money back. Russia is still breathing down his neck and as long as Khodorkovsky and his think tanks lobby against Putin, he will live on edge. The April ruling in The Hague gave him the incentive to lash out once more. Russia wants Interpol to go after him. Khodorkovsky's call for regime change will likely speed up that process in Moscow.
As far as Russian oligarchs go, Khodo is seen as relatively benign -- a philosopher of sorts who cares about Russia probably as much as Putin does. Only, Khodorkovsky's view is a bit too Western perhaps for Putin, who is both oozing with Motherland pride and -- let's face it -- is an ex-KGB man who does not trust the West worth a lick.
"The Putin regime is not eternal. Its power...will fall in the next decade," Khodorkovsky said. "We don’t have a great deal of time. It would be senseless and shortsighted on the part of the West to formulate a Russia policy without looking beyond the current regime. This regime can guarantee absolutely nothing – not even in the medium term – due to the lack of any institutional structures. The West must hold a dialogue with Russian civil society, with young, democratically-inclined Russians. They are Russia’s future," he said.
Good luck with that. The Russian government is in no hurry to allow foreign financed non-governmental organizations to promote anything except maybe sports and nutrition.
But in the meantime, Khodo's view of Russia one day becoming one big Scandinavia, decentralized from Moscow, isn't all that bad of idea. It's going to take a while. They've only been at it now for 25 years, which is less than the old military dictatorships of Latin America and look how they're doing. Venezuela can't keep its lights on. Argentina's Panama Papers president Mauricio Macri is struggling to keep his country intact and Brazil is facing a depression and is a country without a leader. And they've all been at this since the mid-80s!
At the end of his speech, Khodorkovsky comically told attendees in Russian that they could either "applaud...or heckle." They clapped.
Last week, The Times put Khodorkovsky on their weekend magazine cover. It is right up his ally. The Fall & Rise of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Someone should take a picture of Putin reading it at his dacha, a wink and a smirk. The battle of wits between these two will go on, but so far, Putin has Khodo beat...again.
