YouSaid · the spoken record

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

lines on the record: 23
first: 2022-09-21
most recent: 2022-09-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“When I spoke to people in Germany, I asked them, when did people forego Nazism really in the end? When did they get rid of it in themselves? And they all spoke and said as one man about 1968, it took a generation change. This is my hope, the new generation.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why is this nonsense is being listened to? Because there are lots of really excellent experts even here in the UK. And in fact, the answer of what can be done or should be done now is quite simple. Weapons I think the weapons supply to Ukraine that have been supplied to Ukraine so far are probably worth $10 billion, which is nothing compared with those losses in the energy field, which is going to happen that are going to happen now, and you have to pay out of your pocket. Had the supplies been not tens of billions of dollars, but $50 billion or more, the situation on the front would have been completely different now. Knowing Putin and understanding what he's trying to do, I know full well that he would not dare blackmailing Europe with his energy like he's doing today.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What would be really good if the West, when taking decisions vis- ⁇-vis Russia, involved professionals in those decisions, not just politicians? Sometimes I want to cry when I hear some of the ideas mooted around, particularly about the energy sanctions, because I do have some knowledge about the energy markets. For instance, the price cap, one of the ideas that's been hotly debated at the moment, this is nonsense, believe me. There are other mechanisms. I'm not going to waste your time discussing them now, but look, listen to professionals, please. Because those decisions that were taken 20 years ago about the energy policies of the Western countries are in fact today giving you the results that you see, the huge utility bills you have to pay. I think this is the result of unprofessional decisions being made, not political decisions, but by people who specialize in energy. Today we hear all kinds of ideas. Some of them are very sensible, others are total nonsense. And I cannot understand.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a high likelihood that Putin's defeat in this war is going to destabilize his regime. The success of the regime change, however, depends on many different circumstances, including on the Russians themselves. And the more important question when the regime is actually changed, when there is a regime changed, and inevitably there will be a regime change, is the way and the direction Russia is going to take after that. And this is why my colleagues and I are repeating to the West, please don't build another iron curtain. Because the regime change is going to happen, but Russia is going to be there still, it will remain. And Russia could become part of the solution, not part of the problem that we have today for the world under Putin.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People This example of Putin's work. People say, Horna Putin He has his back against the wall, he's going to be dangerous. Between conering a rat Your On the battlefield, not at the negotiations table.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“you cannot strike an agreement with a person like Putin when he feels that he has the upper hand. He can actually deceive you if...”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Basically, when you spend 10 years in prison, when you're released, your value system has changed. For instance, for me, my take on business has changed. It's difficult for me to take it seriously anymore. Because now I look at it more as a game because I realize that there are lots of things in life. Which are much more valuable”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Same law that reigns in a criminal gang. While you are part of that criminal gang, you have to commit crimes. As the gang decides, but then you can share, you can use all the wealth, all the riches of the gang. But if you don't commit the crimes, you're not one of us, you're not part of us. In fact, as it turned out, the 400 million that I was talking about lined Putin's pockets personally. I learned that fact seven years later.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Medvedev's tweets today, you would never believe that that was the man. He was the same man. Nevertheless, it is the same man. So I was selected as the person who was going to make that report about corruption. Well, why was I chosen? Well, because very few people are actually ready to do something like that, are crazy enough to do something like that. And you can actually watch my report on YouTube still. It's there. I adduced one of the examples when a state company lost $400 million in a very blatant way. They were just embezzled from that company. So as I was making that report, it became clear to me that Putin had already taken a decision and that decision was not to go the way we wanted. What became evident is that he had already decided to make corruption into a tool that would allow him to manage the state machine, the state operators.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We felt in 2003 that the country had come to an edge to a sort of breaking point. There was going to be some kind of change. On the one hand, there were people who supported us, businesses, businessmen, for the economy to become more open, more transparent. For instance, we wanted to be part of the global supply chains. We wanted to create joint companies ourselves. We wanted to create a joint company with the Americans. On the other hand, there were those who thought it would be better for them if the country was a closed country, because that would allow them to accumulate wealth as part of their corruption. These interests were incompatible. So we decided to fight for the decision that Putin was about to make. When I say we, who is we? It's actually the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, but also part of the presidential office, including the deputy head of that office at the time, Mr. Medvedev.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Unfortunately, we only learned about it much later. I would like to stress once again that Putin in fact is quite an intelligent and rather dangerous man. Because look at the economy of Russia. It is still quite okay. Why is that? Why is it coping? Because people who are in charge of the Russian economy are the so-called systemic liberals. People like Kudryn, Nabioli, Nagref and others. And Putin actually listens to these people and their advice when they talk about the economy per se. But they have absolutely no influence on Putin in terms of politics or on the decision how this wealth that they help, well, if not turn, but to retain, it's going to be divided, where it's going to go. So as far as I was concerned, yes, I had some impact. He would listen to me in terms of the development of the oil industry in Russia, but that was it.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So during one of my meetings with Putin when we were discussing one of the objectives for my company, what I was supposed to be doing, he said, right, this you should be doing for the state. It's particularly important for the state. And then he corrected himself and said, no, actually, it's not important for the state. It is important for the country. So I actually thought What a modern thinking man. He actually understands the difference between the machine of the state and the people who live in the country I would love to think that all that happened is that Putin actually changed.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because when I met Putin for the first time, he also appeared to me a young, liberal-minded, energetic bureaucrat who was going unlike Yeltsin to propel our country forward and its economy forward. There is sort of a linguistic specificity in Russia. So when somebody says the state in Russia, they don't just mean the bureaucratic operators, they actually mean the whole system Vertically built system of the state. If we want to talk about the people themselves, the citizens of the country, we say the country.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This picture in your mind so you're flying over it in a helicopter and you have 180 kilometers worth of trucks one after another filled with sand and gravel. This is how I saw my wealth. This was my wealth. But when my business was taken away from me, in fact I didn't need the money. I wasn't really interested in money itself. What was interesting for me is those trucks, those bridges, thousands of people, thousands of huge machines working there. That was interesting.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Others took breaks and went to defend what we had made. And then came 1993 when again we were told that no, you're going to give up everything you have earned. Again we took up arms or bricks and went to defend. So if anyone here thinks that doing business under Yeltsin was just sort of reading, leaping through a book and nothing else, that wasn't the case at all. We had nothing like that, what Putin's cronies have today, yachts, palaces. There was nothing like that then. So when people ask me, so what was my wealth at the time? What was it like? How do I imagine it? I can actually tell you straight away, we were actually developing the new oil field in western Siberia, the preoxcare field. And in order to reach that oil field from the railway station, you had to cross 180 kilometers over marshes, over bogland. So we actually laid a road across the marshes.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very few people actually decided to go into business, were brave enough to go into business. Well, just think about it yourselves. On the one hand, there is this law about this new economy, new enterprises where you could actually go into private business. And at the same time, there is a criminal law where it says that if you actually work in business and are an entrepreneur, this is criminalized, it's a criminal offense, and you could actually end up being imprisoned for many years. For the first five years, my colleagues and I would go to work and actually greet ourselves, oh, you're still here, you're not in prison until that actual law was abolished. So there were few people who decided to go into business. Some of them, those who did go, became very successful. And then comes 1991 when we are told, aha, everything you've made is going to be expropriated from you. So then obviously we just took some two questions.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Were not cast straight away by the world in the 1920s and 1930s. A lot of people around the world thought that the Soviet Union could be that model for the rest of mankind or the future of mankind. So when that idea came to nothing, the country that was symbolizing that idea also...”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's actually being hotly debated today because the war that's happening now is also another possibility for the fragmentation of Russia this time. And there are two ideas that exist as far as this particular topic is concerned. The first is purely economic. So we had Kasigin, who was the Prime Minister in the 1970s, and his idea was this soft transition to capitalism. That decision wasn't made, wasn't adopted, but it could have been. But at the time, the oil field of Samat Law was discovered in Russia. And all talk about changing the system came to nothing. So this was the economic explanation of why the Soviet Union collapsed. But there is another more romantic notion. And I think it's closer to the truth. The Soviet Union was a country of one idea. Ourselves, or rather our parents and our grandparents, thought that they could show the world this new way forward. And doubts over this idea.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was quite young when the Soviet Union ceased to exist. In fact, like the rest of my peers, I couldn't imagine that the Soviet Union was going to collapse. And when back in 1991, together with my friends, I went to defend our Russian White House, the parliament, from the coup. We were defending this new life, this new economy that Gorbachev had brought about, where we would feel a role for ourselves in it. We didn't realize that as a result of our actions, the Soviet Union was going to collapse. But now looking back, I realized that it was inevitable. And in fact, it had started many years before that day when we went to defend the White House.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the 1930s, a gangster town. And Putin's task was to establish relations between criminal gangs of St. Petersburg and also the law enforcement agencies of St. Petersburg, which at the time didn't really were not very much different from gangsters. So he helped them to establish a kind of union. When he moved to the Kremlin, his first job, or the first thing he did, was to find some prostitutes to compromise the prosecutor general at the time. This is the man you're dealing with at the moment. All of us are dealing with.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm just look at Putin's history. From the age of 17, he has been working with or in the KGB. And what was the KGB in the USSR? It was an organization above the law. Yes, there was party control, but that organization didn't think that law is anything to do with it. When Putin's term in the KGB was over, he went to work for the mayor of St. Petersburg at the time, Mr. Sopcha. St. Petersburg in Russia at the time was similar to Chicago.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is the biggest problem I face when I talk to Western politicians and leaders because they still have this tendency to treat Putin as a colleague, a man similar to them. This is not the case. So when I tell them that in order to understand Putin, they shouldn't really talk to experts from the foreign office. They should go to a crime-ridden area, to the local police station, where any police inspector would tell them what a normal gangster mafios is like. And how you deal with them”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Greetings, everyone. There are lots of doubts at the moment how the events are going to pan out. But I think this war that Putin embarked upon is not just a problem for Ukraine or for Russia, but for him as well, personally. But this war is bringing his end closer. Whether it's going to be Ukraine that's going to bring this end closer on NATO, we don't know at the moment. But this end is inevitable.”
2022-09-21 · Intelligence Squared · How The West Can Stop Putin, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT