The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), from which Russia was removed after the start of the war in Ukraine, has brought the Russians back. No one voted against the decision to give the floor to representatives of democratic forces. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a candidate for membership in this platform and a former Russian businessman, shared his assessment of the EU’s current efforts to stop Putin.

Mikhail, Russia has in one form or another returned to PACE. You and your like-minded colleagues were given the right to form an institution that will operate within that structure. When and how will the delegation be created?

For over two years PACE discussed whether to create a platform where Russians who are against the war could interact with European institutions. We spoke both with the European Commission and with PACE. I don’t know how the decision was reached inside the European institutions, but it moved faster inside PACE. And I should say Estonia played an absolutely extraordinary role. I mean both Kaja Kallas and [Member of the Estonian Parliament] Eerik-Niiles Kross.

Did Kaja Kallas really support citizens of the Russian Federation?

Yes. But let’s put it more cautiously. I don’t know all the backstage twists and turns. She hasn’t spoken about it publicly.

If she had been opposed — at least from what I understand about European bureaucracy, and I understand it fairly well — none of this would have happened. With Kross I know for sure: without his efforts this would not have happened in any way.

When and how will the delegation itself be formed?

First, it must be understood that Russia as a state is not returning to PACE. Russia as a state is excluded from PACE because of the war of aggression. That is precisely why the parliamentary assembly decided that the Russian platform must not use Russian state symbols. I agree with that. We do not represent the Russian state.

PACE said it wanted to engage with anti-war Russians who support Ukraine’s internationally recognized demands. That’s where the Berlin declaration came in (the document that must be signed by everyone who wants to become a member of the Russian Anti-War Committee — ed.).

From there we can discuss anything, but that is the baseline. And it is with those Russians — that is, those who recognize international law — that PACE is ready to talk. The next question was how exactly to form that platform.

Where does the legitimacy of the platform’s members come from? They aren’t deputies of a national parliament.

If it were necessary, then by elections. But elections cannot be organized in Russia. Holding them within the diaspora is odd. Russia has 140 million people and, in addition, 20 million Russian emigrants. And most of those living outside the Russian Federation are integrated into the international community and do not want to deal with Russia’s problems at all.

That leaves two to five million who are ready to participate. We see that from Russian voting abroad, from those who come to vote. More than half of those Russians are, in one way or another, pro-Putin. Unfortunately. That’s an objective reality we perceive directly. Their share is higher in Germany, lower in the United Kingdom.

You can see them with the naked eye in Estonia as well.

Yes. PACE, which includes not only the Baltic and EU countries but also aggression-suffering Ukraine and Georgia, says: “We do not want to talk to those representatives of Russians who support Putin. We don’t care about their opinion; we won’t take it into account, and we will only speak to them on the battlefield.” And when they say they’re willing to talk to those Russians who take an anti-war position and recognize the supremacy of international law, the talk about elections disappears immediately. PACE itself chooses the people it deems acceptable for engagement. And PACE will take the platform’s voice into account when forming its positions on issues concerning Russians.

Are your recommendations taken into account in PACE, or was letting you in just a polite gesture so you at least have somewhere to go?

As in Europe generally, politicians have different views on this topic. In my assessment, the institutional or political victory now belongs to those who say: “Russia will remain, whether we like it or not. We need to understand how to deal with it in the future. And we must start doing that now. We will not talk to Putin’s supporters. But we are ready to begin talks with those who stand for the same values as we do, hoping this can become a bridge to other Russians in the future.”

If we can explain to those who are willing to talk to us the interests of Russians that are currently overlooked for one reason or another but are important for organizing future relations, then maybe we can solve those problems. That includes visa issues, student exchanges, and cultural matters. I don’t know whether I myself will be taken into that excellent delegation. The Anti-War Committee has put forward my candidacy among others, but the decision will be made by the PACE Bureau.

Your colleague in this project, Dmitry Gudkov, said after the vote at PACE that the four who abstained were Ukrainians. It turns out only the Russian Federation’s propaganda claims you act in unity with Ukraine and that you have a common enemy?

Of course we cannot have the same position as the Ukrainians right now. It simply cannot be the same because they are at war. Being at war forces them into a radical stance. Given Russia’s internal situation, many of us, myself among them, cannot adopt such a radical position.

Ukrainians say, for example: “Let’s attack Moscow and level half the city.” Not everyone says that, but some do. And I understand why. Kyiv is bombed every day… but if tomorrow most Ukrainians were offered the chance to press a button and they knew the missile would hit an ordinary apartment building where ordinary Muscovites live, I hope 90 percent of Ukrainians would not press that button. Simply because, in the end, we are all human beings.

Do you have a common enemy with the Ukrainians?

If we mean the Putin regime, then yes. But not with those who consider all Russians the enemy. In that sense there cannot be a shared enemy simply because we ourselves are Russians — ethnically part of a diverse Russian people.

If this platform is not a replacement for a Russian delegation in PACE, is its function then the protection of rights?

From a practical point of view we are talking about legal protection, including for those living in Russia. Questions concerning Russians’ practical access, for example, to childhood cancer medicines, must be addressed continuously. This is an issue the present Russian state doesn’t care about, but which — I hope — Europeans will care about even while at war with Russia. That’s just one example.

At the same time, not all the Kremlin-driven rage and the propagandists’ work that have erupted around our story are connected to that. They are disturbed that a legitimizing support point for Putin’s opponents is being created — which, in the current situation where the Kremlin is strong, may seem insignificant. But we understand perfectly well that, as Bulgakov said, a person’s problem is not that he is mortal but that he is suddenly mortal.

If Putin does not live 150 years as he would like, but like Stalin 73 years, then the existence of such legitimizing support points is quite dangerous for the Kremlin. And they try to destroy all those support points — both inside the country and abroad.

Have you and your colleagues changed security protocols?

I’ve always understood that when people responsible for important decisions come under pressure, it should be made public immediately. That is the only real protection. If Putin decides to kill one of us, self-defense is not possible. If he decides to kill, he will kill. Protection should not be for each individual separately, but for the institution as a whole. My colleagues have long been fatalists: if one is killed, another takes his place.

Yes, they can pressure the family, a specific person. Yes, a person may be afraid. But the structure must be such that everyone else can immediately know their colleague has come under pressure.

Will your platform explain to EU policymakers why economic sanctions don’t stop the war? You understand energy markets quite well.

I’m already doing that. And if I participate in the platform’s work and such issues are raised, I will share my experience and knowledge. Speaking more specifically about energy sanctions, the measures being taken or planned now will not have a significant impact on Putin’s economy.

Is the current market, the U.S. president and the European community ready to remove seven million barrels of oil and oil products per day from the market? That’s how much Russia supplies to the world. The answer is: they are not ready, because if those seven million were removed at once, prices would soar above $250 per barrel (at present a barrel costs $62 — ed.).

But what about Trump’s campaign promises to ramp up oil production — “Drill, baby, drill”?

“Drill, baby, drill” is good when prices are going up. But if you want the world market price to be around $60 like it is now, you can’t drill the way Trump talked about. The break-even is such that production only pays off around $70. At $100 a bit more, etc. And at $250 you can drill pretty much anything that can be drilled.

So you can’t pressure Putin’s regime through that mechanism?

Exactly. What would be needed to compensate for seven million barrels? First, prices would have to rise to roughly $120 and the U.S. would have to add a further two million barrels. Second, Iran would have to be allowed onto the world market and provide another two million barrels.

In addition, you’d have to reach an agreement with Saudi Arabia for another two to three million from their reserves. At the same time you’d have to make deals with China and India so they don’t buy up Russian oil at a $10-per-barrel discount that Russia can anyway offer. With that combination of steps, Russia could lose roughly $100 billion in its budget.

I doubt Israel wants to see Iranian oil on the legal market.

That’s true as well. That’s precisely why I say that even with the maximum possible sanctions, Trump, in the present circumstances, could at best deprive the Russian budget of $15–27 billion.

Dmitry Gudkov is convinced the EU should open the door to capital outflows from Russia. Do you agree? That would allow the FSB to be more active in the EU.

There are no easy solutions. If people want a silver bullet, they say: “I’ll Google it and find out.” You can also Google how to run a nuclear power plant, but that ends badly. What Dmitry says is absolutely right. But that solution comes with a lot of conditions, a lot of serious work that should have been done already.

If those decisions had been taken at the start of the big war, in the first three to six months, instead of banning fur coats and gold, the impact on the Russian economy would have been much greater. Even if you open the way to capital outflows now, the effect is smaller. Putin can turn off that outflow. Nevertheless, that could extract another $10–20 billion from Putin’s machinery.

The other thing is that special measures would have to be implemented so that that $10–20 billion doesn’t have a negative impact on the Western political system.

Will you be explaining that to Europeans?

I say it all the time: “Friends, your new sanction packages aren’t a single big present for Putin, but they do contain small gifts for him. To make the situation more sensible and so you don’t appear to Russian society as its enemy but rather as the enemy of Putin’s bureaucracy and his war machine, serious work needs to be done on those lists of yours — don’t just stuff them with junk that won’t produce practical results.”

Do you see movement toward mutual understanding on this issue? The war is approaching its fourth year.

There are people like Eerik-Niiles Kross who understand this. How much he can explain it to others I don’t know. I’ve never been a European politician, so I’m not ready to say.

After Yulia Navalnaya urged Kaja Kallas that Russians should not be subject to a total visa ban, that ban has not yet been included in sanction packages. The EU said it would clarify this in December. What is your position?

Of course I’m against a total ban. Any total measures are deeply mistaken. People are all different. You mustn’t make decisions based on the color of a passport. On the other hand, I fully understand there is a large Western political picture that neither I, Yulia, nor the Baltic states have much influence on. And if Russians are important for tourism in Italy, Spain, France, then there won’t be a total ban. That’s something to discuss with Kaja, but there won’t be a total ban.

Tightening will come in any case. For the Baltic states the situation where Putin has moved into active hybrid warfare represents a real threat.

There was a theatrical show-off by armed FSB officers on the Estonian border recently. Is Moscow just trying to keep up the pressure?

Of course. We understand perfectly well that the Kremlin organizes provocations this way. It’s very important for the Kremlin that Russian society perceives the West as an enemy.

So those men with automatic weapons and camouflage were aimed at the domestic audience?

Undoubtedly the domestic consumption factor matters. But of course hybrid warfare is not only for that.

The European Commission told us they don’t intend to interfere with Lithuania’s practice of revoking residence permits from Russians for frequent trips to Russia, and that deportations for lack of language skills, as done in Latvia, are permissible. Will you oppose that?

Cutting social ties with Russian society is wrong. That creates conditions for big problems later. Putin has moved to a hybrid-warfare strategy. A response is inevitable, but it must be balanced with a longer-term view.

If that requires expenditures, including on intelligence services, the West must take those costs into account. Because Russia will remain your neighbor in any case. Building up negative relations with Russian society, whatever it is now, is dangerous.

People will say that because of such positions the FSB will get its people into the EU.

What can I do about that? People, especially populists, often win with simple answers. I am not a populist. I say every response is complicated. If you give simple answers — we won’t let anyone in — you create thousands more hostile Russians whose family ties are cut. Balance is needed. Balance costs money. For example, Estonian society must decide whether it’s ready to give its intelligence services a few more million so they can carry out proper vetting. That’s up to Estonian society to decide.

Is Putin really capable of trying to test NATO’s resilience in the Baltic states?

It would be complete madness to try to start a serious fight with NATO while the war in Ukraine has not ended. NATO, together with Ukraine, has resources that are totally superior to Putin’s. Therefore he must wage psychological war on NATO. His goal is to create uncertainty in European society so that pressure is put on political elites to reduce their support for Ukraine.

But does that work?

That is the most interesting question. I’m not sure Putin is right. I’m not sure the steps he takes as part of hybrid warfare won’t instead mobilize European public opinion. Putin cannot be right about everything. Sometimes he is wrong.

Did Russian companies that in the past were connected to the former oil firm Yukos suffer from strikes by Ukrainian armed forces?

They did. It pains me to see that. I’m very glad people weren’t harmed. On the one hand you understand it’s the result of Putin’s actions. A completely logical consequence. But the heart still aches.

I keep my emotions under control with reason and I don’t believe the Kremlin propaganda that says: “Forget, it wasn’t Putin’s fault. The Europeans did it.” I always remember that it was actually Putin who did it. It’s the ball that bounced back off the wall that Putin threw.

Will the situation in Russia become more heated going forward?

Yes. It’s going to get even worse, because Ukraine and the West have begun to pull themselves together. People — including within the U.S. administration — have finally realized that it’s impossible to play “good cop, bad cop” with Putin if there’s only a good cop. In such a situation, Putin — like any gangster — starts thinking he’s been asking for too little. Unfortunately, that dynamic will only intensify. I hope Putin realizes that. By the way, to shoot down drones flying from Belarus toward Poland, there’s no need to close borders at all. You just have to set up machine guns at the right time.

But what if planes are flying toward Tallinn and the order to shoot them down has to come from Germany?

We need to approach escalation calmly. Right now, Europe isn’t ready for total escalation. Therefore, it’s forced to hold itself back. European society isn’t ready to give up its social comforts for the sake of sovereignty. That’s why its sovereignty is being undermined this way.

However, it seems that under the pressure of hybrid warfare, European society is changing internally. Putin thinks that change benefits him — that right-wing forces will come to power in the EU. I’m not so sure. Meloni’s example proves otherwise.

At this point, I want to say once again that Estonia has played — and will continue to play — a powerful and truly fantastic role in Europe’s foreign-policy institutions. And everyone understands that.

The interview was conducted by Ivan Skrjabin and was originally published in The Baltic Sentinel