The American Spectator : Frontier Justice, Moscow Style

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Frontier Justice, Moscow Style

The blackguard Vladimir Putin keeps has turned Mikhail Khodorkovsky into a great man and the world's leading political prisoner.

Russia watchers have been pondering for months: Will Putin run for president again in 2012, or won't he? The verdict in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky last week should settle it. Putin will run.

In November 2003, federal agents seized Khodorkovsky in Siberia as he was about to board an airplane. At the time, he was chairman of Yukos Oil, the nation's largest oil company. It and he were prosperous. Its shares were publicly traded and he managed it according to Western trading and accounting standards.

In the early nineties the government of then-President Boris Yeltsin was selling off many government assets. Khodorkovsky was one of a number of young entrepreneurs who obtained such assets at bargain prices. In this case it was a small oil company. He and others who made such deals were labeled "oligarchs." When Putin was elected he made it clear he did not like the oligarchs and warned them to stay away from politics. Khodorkovsky did not take the warning as literally as he should, as it turned out. He gave monetary support to political groups that wanted more democracy for Russia. Putin decided to make him an object lesson.

Khodorkovsky, after his arrest, was charged with tax fraud. In 2005 he was tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. His sentence was scheduled to run out in 2011, not long before the next presidential election. With him free, Putin probably envisioned Khodorkovsky encouraging the forces of democracy to challenge his campaign. The simplest thing to do was to bring fresh charges, which is what Putin arranged to do. This time it was charged that Khodorkovsky and his partner, Platon L. Lebedev, had embezzled $27 billion from their company using accounting schemes that eluded the company's auditors.

The charges were a fabrication. Putin used the case to show Russia that he is firmly in charge. This makes a mockery of the apparently sincere statements by current President Dmitri Medvedev calling for government transparency, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law.

Predictably, in a judicial system rife with corruption, the judge in the current case handed down a sentence that will keep Khodorkovsky and Lebedev behind bars until 2017. During the first trial Putin's popularity remained high -- around 80 percent -- because many Russians saw the oligarchs as unjustly rich and the trial served as a rebuke to all of them.

Putin apparently thinks little has changed, but it has. Pro-democracy activists demonstrate more often and in greater numbers than before and the middle class in large cities continues to grow. Gennady Gudkov recently told the Financial Times that today, "People have begun to feel sorry for Khodorkovsky. It is exactly the opposite of what they felt 10 years ago."

Criticism of the verdict by governments and news media outside of Russia was dismissed by the Foreign Ministry as "interference" in a domestic issue. Typical of Putin's style, the critics were invited to mind their own business.

Putin may be able to easily push Medvedev aside and stack the political deck to ensure his 2012 election as president, but the trends are now beginning to move against his the-state-as-bully philosophy and method of operation.

Mr. Hannaford is a member of the Committee on the Present Danger.

About the Author

Peter Hannaford was closely associated with the late President Ronald Reagan for a number of years. His latest book is Reagan's Roots: The People and Places That Shaped His Character.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (10) | Leave a comment

Tom| 1.3.11 @ 7:09AM

I've been looking into the whole Khodorkovsky matter, and do feel sorry for the guy. As stated in the article, 10 years ago, right after the russian economic ruin of 1998, people were pretty upset. Here's a good article on how people felt about oligarchs back in 1999.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/c031199a.html

MoeBlotz| 1.3.11 @ 8:07AM

Vlad the Party Chairman knows what is best for the Bourgeoisie. Will the peasants revolt and be subdued again? The natural yearning of the human spirit to be free may take awhile to overcome a century of suppression. God speed you Russia.

Le Cracquere| 1.3.11 @ 9:36AM

Unfortunately, it's been more like thirteen centuries than one: Putin squats at the end of a long, long line of homicidal autocrats. If you'll forgive the tasteless allusion, anyone who believes in "the natural yearning of the human spirit to be free" must cross the fiery brook of Russian history.

solidground| 1.3.11 @ 3:09PM

Perhaps President Termite could put in a good word for Khodorkovsky with his hamburger-snackin' good buddy Medvedev. If President Termite gave a rat's behind, that is. Which he no doubt doesn't. And speaking of rats, these are the selfsame to whom we have now ceded our present and future flexibility for developing our offensive and defensive capabilities. Oh, for the days of the Cold War, when America had spine and the Russians knew it.

Ming the Merciless| 1.3.11 @ 5:07PM

Once again, the Gestapo-like goons of Vladimir Putin, who pretend to be police officers, have arrested the former first deputy prime minister of the country for daring to publicly criticize the Putin regime and to support jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. This time, they did so even though Boris Nemtsov and his followers had a fully legalized permit to demonstrate. That did not stop Putin, who ordered mass arrests (120 or more were taken into custody, more than a third of all those present — many dressed in Santa Claus outfits) because that’s the only way he can silence his critics.

Nemtsov has now been sentenced to shocking term of fifteen days in a brutal, savage, uncivilized Russian prison where he, like Sergei Magnitsky, could easily be murdered by any number of killers. All for doing nothing more than peacefully speaking his mind in public. Mind you, the New Year’s holiday is protracted in Russia, the most important of the year by far. Nemtsov will be held apart from his family throughout it, in mortal peril. This is the nature of the enemy he faces, that we face.

Welcome to neo-Soviet Russia!

Rest at:
http://larussophobe.wordpress......more-24526

Pelligrino| 1.3.11 @ 11:07PM

Thank you American Spectator staff. More stories of the same as issues rise (and they will) from today's Russia.

I know of no Russian immigrants to W. European nations who ever wish to return. Russia is part of their hearts. But their minds clearly tell them to start over, start from scratch, stay away.

I have seen no decent adults with children willingly return once 'liberated' and out of Russia.

Anyone who thinks Russia is "off the radar screen" of worries just because the old USSR is getting further & further in the rearview mirror is delusional.

Their leadership remains an enemy of all things open, free, democratic, and governed by an impartial rule of law.

Russian| 1.7.11 @ 3:17AM

Khodorkovsky is crime. All Russia know it. He is like Madoff. Nemtsov constantly provokes and is beyond the law.

Samuil| 1.7.11 @ 4:14AM

Mr Hannaford you have studied 180 volumes of the criminal case of Khodorkovsky? Why such a stupid belief in his innocence.

Adidas| 8.11.11 @ 6:08AM

is good

العاب بنات| 4.10.12 @ 12:37PM

The government actively prevents suicide under other conditions. People may have the right to choose, but they do not have a right to demand that docs violate their ethics.