How The West Can Stop Putin, with Exiled Critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky | Intelligence Squared

A high likelihood exists that Putin's military defeat in Ukraine will destabilize his regime; however, whether this leads to regime change depends on many different circumstances including on Russians themselves determining their own political future.

“I think there is a high likelihood that Putin's defeat in this war is going to destabilize his regime um success of the dream change however depends on many different circumstances including on the Russians themselves”

The West supplied arms to Ukraine worth approximately 10 billion dollars, which is 'nothing' compared to energy losses Europe will face; if supplies had been 50 billion dollars or more, the military situation on the front would be completely different.

“weapons I Ukraine so far are probably worth some 10 billion dollars foreign which is nothing but with those losses in the energy field which is going to happen that are going to happen now and you have to pay out of your pocket yes had the supplies been not tens of billions of dollars but 50 billion dollars or more the situation on the front would have been completely different now”

The YouTube platform was blocked in Russia after the Ukraine invasion, but the Russian government had been developing 'RuTube' as a replacement; the fact that YouTube 'collapsed' in Russia after the war shows the brain drain and technological decline because all the Russian hackers and tech professionals left.

“The Brain Drain is really weakening the regime um just one example YouTuber no uh is it to block the YouTube in Russia but because of the domestic reasons he needed to replace YouTube with something else so they created the root tube instead of the YouTube uh so it had been developing for some time and we were terrified to wait for the moment when it was going to be launched and then Russia after the beginning of the war and YouTube just collapsed uh have you noticed that they speak less and less about Russian hackers today a new vehicle they have all left Russia”

There are two competing explanations for Soviet collapse: Kosygin's 1970s proposal for soft transition to capitalism that was rejected (economic explanation), or the more fundamental explanation that the Soviet Union was built around a single ideological idea that, after 70 years of doubt and disproving by the world, lost its power and thus the system built on it collapsed.

“there are two ideas that exist as far as this particular topic is concerned uh foreign good capitalism the first is synonymic so we had kasigin who was the Prime Minister in the 1970s and his idea was this soft transition to capitalism he is the decision was made wasn't adopted but it could have been clearly but at the time the oil field of summit law was discovered in Russia he is and all talk about changing the system came to nothing is so this was the economic explanation of why the Soviet Union collapsed but there is another more romantic notion and I think it's closer to the truth foreign the Soviet Union was a country of one idea is ourselves around our parents and our grandparents so that they could show the world this new way forward and doubts of this idea were not cast straight away by the world”

China has historically played the role of 'wild card' in US-Soviet/Russian geopolitical dynamics since the Nixon-Kissinger era; China is good at exploiting this position and sees economic opportunity in supplying Russia while the West cuts it off.

“it's always been a three-way Dynamic haven't you go back to the days of Nixon and Kissinger and China was always the sort of wild card that was played in that cold war scenario and I think China is very good at exploiting that card um economically it's a great opportunity for China because Russia is losing clients in the west so China sees an opportunity to clean up economically”

The West preached to the vanquished after the Cold War, which was strategically counterproductive; Americans and Western politicians treated Russia's transformation as a triumph of Western values rather than recognizing it came from within Russia itself.

“and the Americans did that and a lot of people in the west did that politicians in the west did that um I don't know whether it was naivety or it was just sort of um Blind Faith that you know Russia would change and become something it hadn't been for a thousand years”

While Western failures in post-Soviet policy may have contributed to resentment, the primary responsibility for Putin's anti-Western stance lies with Putin himself and his circle, not with the West's handling—Western treatment was not helpful but was not the fundamental cause of Putin's aggression.

“I don't want to say that you know the reason Putin is now so anti-western is the fault of the West because it's the fault of Putin and it's the fault of the people around Putin but the West maybe didn't help in the way that it treated uh Putin and people like him after the collapse of the Soviet Union”

Putin is intelligent and dangerous because the Russian economy functions reasonably well, which Khodorkovsky attributes to Putin listening to 'systemic liberals'—economists advising on economic policy—who have no influence on Putin's political or wealth distribution decisions.

“I would like to stress once again that Putin in fact is quite a intelligent and rather dangerous man because look at the economy of Russia it is still quite okay why is that why is it coping is because people who are in charge of the Russian economy are the so-called systemic liberals people like and others he um and Putin actually listens to these people and their advice when they talk about the economy per se absolutely is but they have absolutely no influence on Putin uh in terms of politics or on the decision how this wealth did they help well if not turn but to retain it's going to be divided where it's going to go”

Putin decided to systematize corruption, making it a tool that allows him to manage state operators; officials must commit crimes as the 'gang' decides, but then they can share in the wealth and riches—this is the mechanism of gangster rule applied to government.

“M instruments what became evident is that already decided to make corruption into A2 that would allow him to manage the state machine the state operators foreign you have to commit crimes as the gang decides but then you can share you can use all the wealth all the all the riches of the Gang is but if you don't commit the crimes you're not one of us you're not part of us”

Alexei Navalny is a political prisoner and should be supported regardless of whether his views and ideas align with other opposition figures; however, he should not be expected to be a 'good tsar' in some savior role.

“oh now is a political prisoner so I would support him irrespective of whether our views and ideas coincide or not uh agencies the only thing I would like to warn all Russian citizens and people in the west against is not to look for a kind Za there would never be a kind zai in Russia foreign so Gorbachev tried to be this good design Russia how long did he last one year but do you think Alexi navalny wants to be a good Tsar um well the thing is that nobody wants to to be a bad guy everybody intends to be a good one including Putin when he started but a czar as opposed to a Democrat uh yes”

Two FSB agents in a conversation joke about political honesty under Putin's regime by demonstrating the logical impossibility of honest speech: Dimitri asks Ivan what he really thinks about Putin, Ivan says the same as you do, and Dimitri arrests him for sedition—illustrating how even agreeing is punished.

“but I am going to ask you as a wonderful kind of end thought uh I want that to answer that last question which was what gives you hope Mika foreign well I've already answered this question partly when I said that those under 30 do not remember the country we remember Ed Putin is going to die and my generation is going to leave the stage as well although I'm younger than Putin by 11 years ah yeah would build Germany here is when I spoke to people in Germany I asked them when did people forego Nazism really in the end when did they get rid of it in themselves and they all spoke and said as one man about 1968 it took a generation change this is my hope the new generation well an amazing thought to end on thank you very much [Music] I'm just gonna add thank you all for your questions they were fantastic”

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.

“so Russia is so when somebody says this state in Russia they don't just mean the bureaucratic apparatus they actually mean the whole system are hugely vertically built system of the state yes but if we want to talk about the people themselves the citizens of the country we say the country foreign so 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”

Putin's confidence in his inevitable downfall comes from recognizing that he rose through the KGB, an organization that operated above the law, and that such systems eventually collapse because they cannot sustain themselves indefinitely.

“putum yesterday the KGB uh and what was the KGB in the USSR foreign it was an organization above the law partino control yes there was party control but that organization didn't think that law is anything to do with it”

Khodorkovsky made a public report (available on YouTube) criticizing state company corruption, using as an example 400 million dollars embezzled from a state company; it became clear during this report that Putin had already decided against the open-market reform faction.

“I had used one of the examples when a state company lost 400 million dollars in a very blatant way they were just embezzled from that company Putin Australia so as I was making that report it became clear to me that Putin had already taken a decision and that decision was not to go the way we wanted”

During the 1990s under Yeltsin, business was operated in an environment where entrepreneurship was simultaneously legalized by new economic laws and criminalized by existing criminal law, creating enormous legal risk for entrepreneurs.

“well just think about it yourselves on the one hand there is this law about this new economy new Enterprises where you could actually go into private business es and at the same time there is a criminal law where it says that if you actually work in business and are an entrepreneur this is criminalized as a criminal offense and you could actually end up being in prison for many years”

By 2003, Khodorkovsky and others recognized that Russia had reached a breaking point where there would be serious change; they were attempting to create joint ventures with American companies and be part of global supply chains, but this conflicted with others who wanted Russia to remain closed so they could accumulate wealth through corruption.

“we felt in 2003 that the country had come to an age to a sort of breaking point there was going to be some kind of change foreign for instance we wanted to be part of the global Supply chains we wanted to create joint companies ourselves we wanted to create a joint company with the Americans yes on the other hand there were those who thought it would be better for them if the if the country was a closed country because that would allow us them to accumulate wealth as part of their corruption these interests were incompatible”

Russia's fundamental problem is not the individual occupying the leadership position but the tsarist system itself, which corrupts whoever sits in that position; the example of a cursed factory shows that no good manager can fix a fundamentally flawed system.

“so the place of a design in Russia it's got forsaken it's cursed is even a good person sitting in that chair sometime later becomes a bad person”

Russia must be transformed into a real federal republic with proper federalization; as regions become more politically autonomous and independent, the necessary changes for democratic governance will follow.

“but if we uh in Russia into a real Federation federalizing it properly then the changes will followers and I do think this is possible because I can see that the regions of Russia are becoming more and more politically autonomous more important independent politically not in political subjects um yeah foreign and I think this is something we should be working on now and this is something we should help uh”

Khodorkovsky's hope for Russia comes from observing that people under 30 do not remember the Soviet Union that older Russians nostalgically recall; generational change will produce political change when his generation and Putin's generation pass from power.

“well I've already answered this question partly when I said that those under 30 do not remember the country we remember Ed Putin is going to die and my generation is going to leave the stage as well although I'm younger than Putin by 11 years ah yeah would build Germany here is when I spoke to people in Germany I asked them when did people forego Nazism really in the end when did they get rid of it in themselves and they all spoke and said as one man about 1968 it took a generation change this is my hope the new generation”

When Putin first became president and Khodorkovsky met him, Khodorkovsky perceived him as a young, liberal-minded, energetic bureaucrat who would propel Russia's economy forward—a misreading of Putin's true intentions.

“but I wouldn't ridicule uh Bush for that because when I met Putin for the first time he also appeared to me a young liberal-minded energetic bureaucrat who was going unlike Yeltsin to propel our country forward and its economy forward”

Risk-taking work (like flying fighter jets or climbing to high altitudes) requires that workers not focus on risk daily; Khodorkovsky, who worked at heights, sometimes forgot safety harnesses; opposition to Putin similarly requires focusing on the work rather than constantly dwelling on danger.

“you know this is the question I'm always asked every time um maybe one of you knows someone who is a fighter pilot do you actually ask them every time are you afraid to fly that plane today perhaps some of you know people who work at huge Heights the expression is do you also ask them aren't you afraid going out and climbing that height every day of your life and actually I was one of the people who worked at hikes you know assembling things and sometimes I even forgot to put the safety harness on me and when you suddenly realize oh my God there is no safety harness there you start sweating and you start thinking perhaps I chose the wrong job uh nevertheless each of us does their own job and you don't really think on a daily basis how risky that job is”

Putin is a KGB-trained gangster, not an ideological opponent, and can be understood by comparing him to a crime boss from a gang-ridden area rather than analyzing him through traditional political or diplomatic frameworks.

“when I tell them that in order to understand Putin they shouldn't really talk to experts from the foreign office they should go to a crime ridden area to the local police station is where any Police Inspector would tell them what a normal gangster Matthews is like and how you deal with them he's a gangster”

In the 1990s Saint Petersburg under the mayor Anatoly Sobchak was a gangster town similar to Chicago in the 1930s, and Putin's role was to establish relations between criminal gangs and law enforcement agencies, which were themselves indistinguishable from gangsters.

“he went to work for the mayor of Saint Petersburg at the time Mr soft Chuckles to Chicago America in Russia at the time was similar to Chicago in the 1930s a gangster town foreign task was to establish relations between criminal gangs of Saint Petersburg and also the law enforcement agencies of Saint Petersburg which at the time didn't really were not very much different from gangsters”

The Cold War was driven by ideology and the clash of political and social systems, but the current Russia-West conflict under Putin is driven by personal hurt Putin felt at the end of the Soviet Union, which he took as personal humiliation.

“the way that Moscow related to the West for all those years under Soviet communism was driven by ideology a cold war was The Clash of political social systems and beliefs um but now it seems much more driven by self-interest so um Putin's opposition to the West seems to stem from the personal hurt that he felt at the end of the Soviet Union which he took really as a sort of personal humiliation”

Western observers and journalists in the late 1980s and early 1990s were self-deluded in believing that Russia would become like Western liberal democracies after communism fell; this delusion lasted into Putin's early years when he paid lip service to liberal democracy.

“and you're looking back I mean I just realized how incredibly self-deluding I was um it was a delusion that lasted for something it did it did I mean that's a really interesting thing but the 1990s obviously the yelts in years but even into the Putin area so for the first four or five years of Putin Empire people forget that he was at least paying lip service to the ideals of liberal democracy and greater integration into the world community”

Khodorkovsky's wealth during the 1990s was not luxury goods like yachts and palaces (which Putin's cronies have today) but rather productive infrastructure: a 180-kilometer road across marshes in Western Siberia to reach the Priobskoye oil field, visible as an endless line of trucks carrying sand and gravel.

“we were actually developing the new oil field in Western Siberia the pre-ox care field and in order to reach that oil field from the railway station you had to cross 180 kilometers over marshes our bogland so we actually laid a road across the marshes uh foreign and just have this picture in your mind so you're flying over it in a helicopter and you have 180 kilometers worth of trucks one after another filled with sand and gravel what is this is how I saw my wealth this was my wealth”

When Khodorkovsky's business was taken from him, he wasn't primarily interested in the money but in the productive machines, thousands of workers, and large-scale infrastructure projects he was managing—the work itself was what was interesting.

“but when my business was taken away from me in fact I didn't need the money at the um I wasn't really interested in money itself what was interesting for me is those trucks those bridges thousands of people thousands of huge Machines working there that was interesting”

Khodorkovsky should be charged with being a member of the kleptocratic oligarchy that strangled the Russian economy post-1991, and his opposition to Putin may be merely a reflection of economic vendetta against Putin rather than genuine idealism for Russia's future—he may be a liberal or merely an opportunist seeking power.

“you mentioned Putin's gangsterism and governance for his self-enrichment how would you answer the charge of being a member of the kleptocracy the oligarchy which strangled Russia economy pose 91 and Israel opposition to Putin merely a reflection of an economic Vendetta against Putin or motivated by a genuine idealism for the future of Russia in short are you a liberal or an opportunist”

Khodorkovsky has stated he does not claim to be the best or most wonderful person in the world; he differs from Putin by fighting for both his wealth and democracy against weapons/force, showing he is not motivated purely by self-interest.

“I'm not going to claim that I'm the best or most wonderful person in the world no uh yeah right I do not look like Putin that's true no yeah foreign but there have been several moments in life when I went to defend both my own wealth and democracy is against weapons foreign and then another moment came in 2003 again I was doing fine believe me in the same way very comfortably most Lucha but I had that firm belief that my country could be made better foreign and now you know I'm here I'm free and I continue fighting for you”

The collapse of the Soviet Union was not foreseen as inevitable by those living through the late 1980s, despite hindsight making it appear obvious; it came out of the blue in August 1991.

“no and anybody who said they could I think you know hindsight is a fantastic gift um but I I was there through the end of the 80s up and to the coup that Mikhail was talking about and um it came out of the blue”

In 1991, Khodorkovsky and his peers defended the Russian White House during the failed coup attempt, expecting to defend Gorbachev's new market economy and a role for themselves in it, not realizing they were defending the conditions for Soviet collapse—which looking back was inevitable and had been developing for years before that moment.

“like the rest of my peers I couldn't have imagined that the Soviet Union was going to collapse when back in 1991 together with my friends I went to defend our Russian White House the parliament from the coup foreign we were defending this new life this new economy that Gorbachev had brought about where we would feel a role for ourselves in it foreign we didn't realize that as a result of our actions the Soviet Union was going to collapse”