Putin’s top opponent, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, explains in an interview with HN:

• Under what conditions he would consider returning to Russia.
• What he thinks about Robert Fico and Viktor Orbán’s contacts with Putin and his associates.
• Whether he fears that Putin’s regime will try to kill him.

You have been living in London for about a decade, from where you ran the charity Open Russia. Are you continuing its activities today?

No, because Open Russia ceased to exist before the war in Ukraine began. It was declared undesirable in Russia and its Russian executive director was imprisoned. Fortunately, a few months ago, he was part of a prisoner exchange, so he was released and, after four years behind bars, he moved to Germany.

So what are you currently involved in?

I am doing more now. I am a co-founder of a committee (Russian Anti-War Committee) that helps political prisoners, but also former prisoners of war, for example. And also Russians who were forced to leave Russia because of some kind of persecution. In addition, I am involved in the fight against propaganda. If you search for my name on YouTube, for example, you will see that I have a channel with millions of followers. And finally, my colleagues and I recently founded a think tank that publishes materials in English. It is called the New Eurasian Strategies Centre, or NEST Centre. I think what we publish is quite interesting.

Do you have any colleagues directly in Russia who provide you with first-hand information? We know that often only the things that pro-Kremlin propaganda allows us to see get through here.

Yes, we have enough people who are still in Russia. After all, it is thanks to them that we can help political prisoners. As for people who have real access to truly interesting information, it is a little more complicated. Nevertheless, they come to our meetings. Of course, this involves a certain risk for them. But as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

You yourself have experienced a lot under Vladimir Putin’s regime. You spent more than ten years behind bars. Do you have any information that you are still being targeted by the Russian secret services? Are they watching you and are you in danger? We know what happened to Alexander Litvinenko, for example, who died after drinking poisoned tea 19 years ago in London. Or former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who survived an attempt to poison them with Novichok in Salisbury.

If you visit the website of the Russian secret service FSB, you will see a news item from just a few days ago. It talks about the Oxford Russian Foundation being granted the status of an undesirable organisation. It literally says that this foundation is a scum that collects information about the social, political, and economic life of Russian citizens. Therefore, it has been declared hostile, and anyone who cooperates with it faces imprisonment. And do you know who they mean? Yes, it is my NEST Centre, which I told you about a moment ago. I just want to say that they are watching me very closely.

Aren’t you afraid they’ll want to kill you?

As far as potential risk is concerned, I don’t think it’s that high right now. But you know how life works – different life experiences create different attitudes to risk in different people. They then react to the same situation in different ways. It also depends on how old they are, or rather on the decade in which they were born. For example, I was born in 1963, so my reaction is often conditioned by my life experiences and growing up in the Soviet Union.

So people who were born in the USSR may react differently than those who have lived their entire lives under Vladimir Putin’s rule? Is there a generational gap, and will it become increasingly difficult to convince people born after 2000 that what is happening in Russia today is neither normal nor right?

You’ve asked me a very interesting question. Let me start by saying that every person is different. It’s true that a huge number of people born in 2000 and in the first decade of the new millennium are going to fight in Ukraine entirely voluntarily. And when I say voluntarily, I mean that they are going there for money. However, when we talk about democratically minded Russians, especially young people from big cities, freedom is something normal for them – much more so than, for example, for me, who was born in the Soviet Union. When I was 25, the opportunity to travel abroad was nothing short of a miracle. For them, it is completely normal. That is why I say that they are different from us. This generation perceives human life and the relationship to freedom in a completely different way.

We all know what happened last year to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a penal colony under circumstances that remain unclear. It is clear to me that, given his tragic fate, you would not even consider traveling to Russia today. What would have to happen for you to even imagine returning to the Russian Federation?

Well, first of all, Putin must die. Because it is clear that he will not give up his position until he dies. And after his death, chaos will ensue. In my opinion, it will take about two years for the situation to calm down. And even then, developments in Russia could go in different directions. But it certainly won’t be worse than it is now. But to come back to your question – when all that chaos starts, that is when I will be able to come.

How do you help opponents of Putin’s regime?

I’ll try to summarise. Currently, Russia is ruled by a true and full-fledged dictatorship. Anyone who does anything against the regime must be prepared to go to prison. Either for life, or if not for the rest of their lives, then at least until the end of Putin’s. As for me, I cannot offer these people any ideas that would be worth dying for. Today, we are in a situation where, as a result of certain decisions made by the West, Putin’s regime is strong. Unfortunately, this is really the case. Nevertheless, there are several ways in which I can help people in Russia.

What are these ways?

Firstly, it is helping through information. I simply show people that they are not crazy, but that the crazy ones are those who are willing to murder their neighbours for money. Secondly, when people end up in prison, I can help them survive there somehow. Not significantly, but at least a little.

Could you be a little more specific about what you meant when you said that Putin has been strengthened as a result of bad decisions made by the West? Is US President Donald Trump to blame for this, or perhaps some European countries?

Of course, some would love to blame Trump for everything, but it all started before he came along. The specific decision not to let Putin lose was made before Trump. I talked about it back then. I was told very directly that this was indeed the case. The only thing that has changed now is that this information is publicly available. Here in the West, people simply thought it would be best to let Putin fight a little, wage war, but not let him lose, lest there be a risk of escalation. In my opinion, this was a very serious mistake.

Why do you think so?

Because the result of such a policy is that Ukraine is losing people. Now it basically doesn’t matter how many weapons you supply them with. Ukraine is no longer able to fight and wage war as effectively as it did in 2022 or 2023. And there is another important factor.

Like what?

Russian public opinion, which was totally shocked by the war in 2022 and radically opposed to it, has become significantly numb over the past three years. People just don’t realize or remember who started it all. Now they are afraid of defeat. So thanks to that, Putin is very popular today, and it should be noted that even if the war ends, the Russian people will suffer enormous trauma. It will take another 20 years, for example, before they can come to terms with it. However, if the war had ended in 2022 – and there was a real possibility of that – I think we would be in a much simpler situation now.

How do you imagine it ending in 2022? Would Putin’s conditions be met, or would the West provide Ukraine with significant assistance, enabling it to liberate Crimea and Donbas?

Well, I don’t think Crimea will be liberated at all – neither then nor now. However, if Ukraine had been provided with air support in 2022, which it received a year later, it could have defended itself much more forcefully at that time, which would have led to peace negotiations. Therefore, it must be said quite clearly – the West really did hesitate. It wasn’t that it couldn’t mobilise, but that it didn’t want to. It considered it too dangerous for itself. At least that’s my view, although the general explanation we hear more often may be a little different.

Do statements and visits by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán contribute to a kind of legitimization and normalization of Vladimir Putin and his regime?

As for people like Robert Fico and Viktor Orbán, who openly support Putin, I understand that they are driven by political motivations, but in my opinion, this is a very dangerous game. It creates the impression for Putin that the West is divided – all he needs to do is apply a little more pressure and it will completely fall apart. And I know exactly how and when Putin will try to apply this pressure.

How?

By testing a hybrid attack on a single NATO member country. This could lead to two outcomes: either NATO would fall apart, or the situation would escalate. If it escalated, it could lead to a situation where the whole thing could escalate into a nuclear war. And at that moment, when Fico and Orbán are sitting in some shelter, I really don’t know how fondly they will remember what it was like at their meetings with Putin. Fico will be thinking about his visit to Moscow on May 9, and Orbán will be thinking about other things he does out of love for Putin.

Can Putin’s regime collapse only from within, or will foreign forces help it?

Unfortunately, I can’t think of any example of a regime that won a war and then collapsed. The fact that Putin was given the opportunity not to lose has, in my opinion, strengthened his power and rule for at least another five years. The collapse of the regime could have come in the event of a military defeat, but that did not happen. There is no other way to overthrow the regime from abroad. And all the nice words about how we must put pressure on Russia and so on will have the opposite effect—they will lead to the consolidation of the regime. But we can contribute to the collapse of the regime from within. And when I say we, I mean us, the Russians. So when you asked about organised opposition, our Anti-War Committee is trying to unite anti-war Russians.

How can the West help you in this endeavor?

What the West could do—and usually doesn’t do in similar situations—is one thing. When Putin’s regime begins to fall, it can help Russia set the necessary course. And the right course for Russia is federalisation and parliamentarism. But the West traditionally does not do this – instead, it tries to find a good tsar for Russia. And a good tsar preserves Russia’s high degree of centralisation. To succeed, he will be forced to look for an external enemy, because that will be the only way for him to maintain power and recognition from the people. Everyone knows this, but they will still do the same thing. And then they will wonder – why again?

Is there anything that can be done about this?

What I am trying to do now is to convince the West not to look for a “good tsar” next time, but to try to cooperate with various political forces and regions in Russia. Not to break Russia up, but to help it move towards federalisation and parliamentarism. However, this is a very difficult task. Why, you ask? Because it requires a lot of long and complicated words. And the West doesn’t want to think too much, because it is simply used to doing things differently.

The interview was conducted by Pavel Novotný, and it was originally published in HN