In Russian, when officials say 'the state' (gosudarstvo), they refer to the bureaucratic apparatus as separate from the people and country; when Putin said something should be done 'for the state' and then corrected himself to say 'for the country,' this linguistic shift suggested Putin understood the distinction between state machinery and citizens.
factualpending
Speaker
Mikhail KhodorkovskyEvidence Quote
“during one of my meetings with Putin when we were discussing one of their objectives for my company what I was supposed to be doing he said right this you should be doing for the state it's particularly important for the state yet and then he corrected himself and said no actually it's not important for the state it is important for the country”
Source
How The West Can Stop Putin, with Exiled Critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky | Intelligence Squared— Intelligence SquaredCreated: 8/10/2026, 10:56:34 PM
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