Ukraine war: Ex-oligarch calls attack "enormous mistake" - "We are quickly approaching Putin's end"

Created: 03/13/2022, 21:21

By: Marcus Giebel

Currently on a war campaign: Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin has conjured up a war in Ukraine and has apparently made a clear mistake.

© MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/afp

Vladimir Putin desperately wants to expand his power and is not just declaring war on Ukraine.

The former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky is sure that he is digging his political grave with it.

Munich – The Russian invasion of Ukraine* once again shows the world that war primarily brings death and destruction.

As a result, enormous suffering for millions of people.

In the case of the Ukraine war, all of this is the work of Vladimir Putin*, who mainly sent unsuspecting soldiers to the neighboring country for his self-proclaimed special operation.

The Kremlin boss is the face of new atrocities every day, and he has maneuvered himself into the sidelines internationally.

Putin and Ukraine: "Attacking Ukraine Was a Huge Mistake"

Even in Russia, where the 69-year-old has risen to absolute ruler within two decades and no longer seems to be accountable to anyone, he could face a quick fall.

At least that's what Mikhail Khodorkovsky suspects.

The former oligarch, who now lives in London, predicts in the

interview: "I think the attack on Ukraine was a huge mistake.

We are now approaching Putin's end very quickly.”

The 58-year-old draws on Russian history, in which lost wars have always thrown those in power into considerable difficulties: "Russia* is a dictatorship, and if the dictator does not succeed in convincing the population of his victory in the Ukraine war , within two years he will have lost his power.”

Putin's Ukraine war: "Like all dictators lost touch with reality over time"

For Khodorkovsky himself, Putin's attack on Ukraine did not come as a complete surprise, but it was "a shock to me".

The development also affects him for personal reasons, because his ancestors come from the Ukraine*, and as a small child he spent every summer with his great-grandmother in Kharkiv.

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In his eyes, Putin "like all dictators has lost touch with reality over time".

The pandemic also contributed to this, as a result of which the circle in which the President moved was significantly reduced.

Video: Dead and injured in air raid near Lviv

Putin attacks Ukraine: "He fears it as an example for the Russian people"

Above all, it was obviously fear that drove Putin to extremes, Khodorkovsky suspects.

Fear of change and its waning influence.

"He fears, and he rightly fears, that a successful Ukraine* would set an example for the Russian people," explains the entrepreneur: "It's one thing when there are democratic countries like Germany* or Great Britain* - they are far away.

But if a people right on your border live much better than you, that's a completely different matter."

Putin and his war: "He sees Americans, Poles and Baltics as enemies and says I'm just defending myself"

In addition, “people with a God complex” cannot accept that power is slipping out of their hands, that they are losing respect among the population, or that they are even to blame for a weakening economy.

That's why Putin sees it this way: "It's his enemies' fault.

The Americans, the Poles, the Baltics, they get involved and disturb his circles: They want to kill me, he says, I'm only defending myself."

While NATO is virtually non-existent for the Kremlin boss because it has never shown “that it would be ready for real warfare”, he looks at the reaction of the USA*: “If the Americans show weakness, Putin will try to invade Poland and to punish the Baltic States.

Just because he can.”

Expecting Vladimir Putin's fall soon: Mikhail Khodorkovsky is following the Russian attack in Ukraine from his British exile.

© Michael Kappeler/dpa

Putin's war in Ukraine: "When Europe helps Ukraine, it also helps itself"

This is one of the reasons why Khodorkovsky is convinced that in Kyiv*, Kharkiv or Dnipro not only Ukrainian independence is being defended: "I'm sure that if Europe helps Ukraine now, it will also help itself to prevent a war." "If the war goes on, it will become an existential threat to Western democracies."

The Kremlin critic considers the current reactions of the West to be spot on: “I say now: As many financial sanctions* as possible!

No oxygen for Putin's regime!

Full blockade until the end of the war.”

Khodorkovsky also does not want to admit concerns that these steps would affect the Russian population: "Because these problems are definitely smaller than those of the people who are bombed in Kharkiv or Kyiv."

Putin's war in Ukraine: "Do everything to make the functioning of Putin's state apparatus more difficult"

At the same time, he points out how important it is that opponents of the war in Russia stand up and raise their voices.

"Every demonstrator who is arrested in Russia also employs a soldier who would otherwise kill in Ukraine," emphasizes Khodorkovsky.

But he cites other examples of how his compatriots can make life difficult for Putin: "In addition, we at the anti-war committee call on the Russian population: people, if you want to take a stand against the war but are afraid to take to the streets, then commit Sabotage in your workplace.

Don't go to work!

Deliberately makes mistakes, does not deliver goods, loses documents!

Do everything to complicate the functioning of Putin's state apparatus.”

Because other than with help from Putin's own country, this nightmare in which the world finds itself is unlikely to end.

Khodorkovsky doesn't want to admit all this either: "For me there was never a conflict between the homeland of my ancestors and my homeland Russia.

That's why the fact that my one homeland invades the other homeland was such a psychological shock to me.

I don't know how to live in this new world.”