Mikhail Khodorkovsky has received the Knight of Freedom Award 2016 from the European Academy of Diplomacy.

Khodorkovsky received the prize on Saturday in Poland “for his uncompromising efforts to build the rule of law, civil society and promote European values in the Russian community,” said Zbigniew Pisarski, head of the Pulaski Foundation, which hands out the annual award.

Once a year, the Casimir Pulaski Foundation gives the Knight of Freedom Award to an outstanding person who has promoted the values of freedom, justice, and democracy. Prizewinners include: Professor Władysław Bartoszewski, Professor Norman Davies, Alaksandar Milinkiewicz, President Lech Wałęsa, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, President Valdas Adamkus, Bernard Kouchner, and Richard Lugar, President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, President Mikheil Saakashvili, Radek Sikorski i Carl Bildt and President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.

The Casimir Pulaski Foundation is an independent, non-partisan think-tank specialising in foreign policy and international security. The Foundation concentrates its research on two subjects: transatlantic relations and Russia and the post-Soviet sphere. The Casimir Pulaski Foundation has a partnership status with the Council of Europe. The European Academy of Diplomacy, the leading programme of the foundation is the first non-governmental, non-for-profit diplomatic academy in Europe, with a mission of shaping, sharpening and inspiring a new generation of enlightened international leaders.

It is named after General Casimir Pulaski (1745–1779), a “Polish patriot and U.S. colonial army officer, hero of the Polish anti-Russian insurrection of 1768… and of the American Revolution.”