The editor-in-chief and host of the Russian radio station Echo of Moscow, Alexei Venediktov, has published his impression of an impromptu meeting with Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Berlin earlier this month.

Venediktov explained that it was not an interview, but an unplanned meeting with Khodorkovsky – he originally arrived in Berlin to meet with the former Ukrainian Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, where she was hospitalised, but things didn’t go as planned and he instead met with Khodorkovsky

In an interview, the radio host shared his impressions from the meeting: “During our conversation, I felt the politician in him. I felt this during our very first meeting after his release, on January 7, and I feel this now, after over two months have passed. I understand that he regards the events from a viewpoint of a politician. But politics – is a struggle for power, and he is not fighting for power.

It seems to me that he does not want to become some kind of public figure (and a politician by no means is a public figure). Perhaps, he could get involved on another level – with ideas, organisation, funds, support, but to become a public figure and to participate in any elections… I didn’t feel that.”