Mikhail Khodorkovsky pressures oligarchs to declare Putin ‘war criminal’

Russian exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky in an interview with The Washington Post called on Russian oligarchs to denounce Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal.

Khodorkovsky, who was at one time imprisoned by Putin before he left his home country for London, told the Post that “public figures cannot leave quietly and then sit quietly.”

“If you have left, then you should publicly dissociate yourself or we should be forced to suspect that you are acting on [the Kremlin’s] behalf,” Khodorkovsky said.

Russian oligarchs have come under enormous pressure since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. A number of the oligarchs have been centered in London, where for years they were generally left alone as their funds were used to buy everything from the Chelsea soccer team to mansions that led to part of London being called “Moscow-on-Thames.”

Khodorkovsky has his own unique history. Once estimated to be Russia’s richest man with $15 billion, he ran into trouble with Putin and was arrested and charged with fraud in 2003. Two years later he was sentenced to nine years in prison and in the interim shares were frozen in his company Yukos, which had emerged from the post-Soviet era.

Putin pardoned Khodorkovsky at the end of 2013, which led him to leave Russia for Switzerland and then London with a much reduced fortune.

In the interview with the Post, Khodorkovsky singled out Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven, two prominent businessmen who have left Russia since the invasion. He said both should do more to call out Putin for war crimes.

“You should step up to the microphone and say that Putin is a war criminal and that what he is doing is a crime, that the war against Ukraine is a crime. Say this, and then we’ll understand that Putin doesn’t have a hold over you,” he told the Post.