Exiled Russian Billionaire Khodorkovsky on the Real McMafia, Vladimir Putin, & Political Murders

[DonViejo]

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Exiled Russian Billionaire Khodorkovsky on the Real McMafia, Vladimir Putin, and Political Murders

The long-imprisoned tycoon and supporter of civil society spoke in London on the day that Putin restarted the nuclear arms race. Since then, another exile may have been poisoned.

ANNA NEMTSOVA
03.05.18 9:00 PM ET

LONDON—Russia’s former richest man and longtime prisoner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, wearing slightly threadbare jeans and a thick sweater under his jacket, was making coffee in his office on Hanover Square. Snow was falling outside, covering the British capital with a wet, cold blanket a little reminiscent of Moscow, and there is no doubt that is where Khodorkovsky’s thoughts were as we talked.

Earlier in the day, last Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin had boasted to the Russian parliament about the country’s new nuclear weapons, which are capable, he said, of destroying millions of lives “at the speed of a meteorite.”

Khodorkovsky, adjusting his rimless glasses, said quietly that Putin’s speech had left him shocked: “Sounds like the old man is out of his mind, something needs to be done about that.”

“While Putin spoke about war and death, his audience full of Russian officials was applauding, beaming with idiotic smiles—I was disgusted to see that,” Khodorkovsky said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast.

One wouldn’t have expected him to speak kindly of the Russian president, whom Khodorkovsky has known for many painful years.

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