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Published on Nov 18, 2016
Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, a Russian businessman and staunch opponent of President
Vladimir Putin, tells FRANCE 24 that the mutual admiration between Putin
and Donald Trump expressed on the US campaign trail is about to end.
As
the news of Trump’s shock election victory broke across the world last
week, deputies in Russia’s rubberstamp parliament broke into a round of
applause. Putin himself wasted no time congratulating the new US
president-elect, and his message, unlike those of his German and French
counterparts, was resoundingly positive.
In a telegram dispatched
shortly after Trump’s victory speech, Putin called for a constructive
dialogue on US-Russian relations, based on "mutual respect and a real
consideration for the other's interests".
Many Trump opponents,
particularly those in US foreign policy circles, worry that the next US
president perhaps has too much respect for Putin, and a real
consideration for Moscow’s -- rather than Washington’s or Brussels’ or
Kiev’s -- interests.
Russia dominated the 2016 US presidential
campaign trail more than it ever has in recent years with Russian-based
cybercriminals hacking into Democratic National Committee servers and
Trump declaring that Putin was a better leader than outgoing US
President Barack Obama. “Wouldn’t it be great if we actually got along
with Russia?” Trump famously asked his cheering supporters at a campaign
stop.
But one of Putin’s most high profile opponents believes that
now that the US Republican candidate has won the November 8 election,
the Putin-Trump honeymoon is doomed.
“I’m pretty certain that
Vladimir Putin sooner or later will be disappointed [with Trump],” said
Khodorkovsky in an interview with FRANCE 24. “Of course he’ll try to
save face, but I’m pretty sure the dynamics of the relationship will be
similar to that of [former US President George W.] Bush when he was
president. First, he saw something in President Putin’s eyes, something
beautiful. But then he realized he had been mistaken.”
Khodorkovsky
was referring to Putin’s first meeting with Bush shortly after he was
sworn into the White House for his first term. Following his meeting
with Putin at a summit in Slovenia, Bush famously told the press, "I
looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and
trustworthy…I was able to get a sense of his soul.”
Khodorkovsky, the
former boss of Russian mega-company Yukos Oil, knows a bit about
Putin’s soul and his brains, and how he uses the latter to manipulate
the Russian people.
“Putin in Russia has been trying, during the US
election campaign, to establish that Trump is his man in Washington DC
and Trump’s victory means that the Kremlin will be able to control
Washington DC just as the Kremlin controls certain satellite states,”
said Khodorkovsky.
“This is just a PR campaign that may affect a lot
of the Russian population, but not all of it. Those who understand the
US political system know this is just nonsense and I believe that
certain changes between the US and Russia will take place because
president-elect Trump, he is a person who sticks to traditional values
in a certain sense and he’ll see very soon that his values and that of
Vladimir Putin’s are very different.”
‘Not that concerned with my life’
Khodorkovsky
was speaking to FRANCE 24’s Marc Perelman in Brussels, where he was in
town to launch the Boris Nemtsov Forum, a platform for Russian-European
dialogue, at the European Parliament. The former oil tycoon currently
lives in exile between London and Switzerland and is the founder of the
Open Russia movement.
The Boris Nemtsov forum is named after the late
Russian physicist and liberal politician who was shot dead in February
2015 in what his political allies believe was an assassination meant to
terrify them into silence.
Khodorkovsky, who has served over 10 years
in Russian jails for fraud, on what human rights campaigners say were
trumped up charges, is no stranger to intimidation from the Kremlin.
But, he claims, he will not be silenced.
“I’m
not that concerned with my life because I’m well known as a personal
opponent of Mr. Putin and he understands that should he issue an order
[to have Khodorkvosky killed] it will be immediately crystal clear where
this comes from.”
Click on the player above to watch FRANCE 24's full interview.
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