News reports of Berezovsky’s death have often mentioned Khodorkovsky as another of the Russian “oligarchs” of the 1990s.

Commenting on the group of men who became wealthy and influential in post-Soviet Russia, in a ValdaiClub.com interview on March 27, 2013, Professor Richard Sakwa noted that there were two main types of “oligarchs”.

Sakwa described one group as so-called “criminal oligarchs”, people “who were not so interested in the development of business as such” but “interested in quick gains, to gain wealth by exploiting the weakness of the state”.

On the other side, according to Sakwa, “there was what we could call more classical entrepreneurs like Khodorkovsky”; “more business-centered oligarchs, who were interested in Russia’s development as a modern, industrial capitalist state.”

Sakwa called Khodorkovsky “a key example of this second type.”