Newsletters / How To Stop Vladimir Putin’s Mafia

This week in the Wall Street Journal, Open Russia founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky sets out a radical policy for Western leaders: stop seeing the Putin regime as a conventional political force and start treating it for what it is: “one of the most dangerous mafia gangs of the century.”

“The West’s real enemy—and the enemy of the Russian people too—is a group of about 100 key beneficiaries of the Putin regime, and several thousand of their accomplices, many of whom hold posts in the Federal Security Service and the presidential administration.”

How to Stop Vladimir Putin’s Mafia is a call to policymakers in the West to ally themselves with Russia’s 144-million-strong population and begin to put pressure on those people — many of whom began their journey in the criminal underworld of St. Petersburg — who have now captured the presidential post and are running the country for the benefit of their criminal enterprise.

“Mr. Putin’s cronies don’t mind being known as ruthless and unconscionable brutes, so long as their critics pose no challenge to their interests. They don’t rely on the law, so only power matters to them; they want to be feared in the international arena.”

It’s time to wise up.  Read the full article here.