N.P.: But how can one discuss democracy having paid bribes for this many years?
P.I.: You’re right. But Khodorkovsky was trying to distance himself from the system of corruption. Such radical changes cannot be made overnight. Khodorkovsky built up a different kind of system within YUKOS in which any theft was clamped down on very harshly. He then wanted to build a similar system on the outside, so as to not be dependent on the appetite of the state any more.
N.P.: A state within a state?
P.I.: Not quite. Of course YUKOS was, in a certain sense, copying some fragments of the Russian state, but the idea was different: this was a business, subordinated to making profits for the shareholders.
N.P.: Then there’s Vladislav Surkov, the “grey eminence” of recent domestic Russian politics: a high-ranking employee of the Menatep group and a friend of Leonid Nevzlin [Vice Chairman of YUKOS board]. And nothing. Nobody is summoning him to court or sending out subpoenas related to the YUKOS case. Even yourself, while listing the villains, did not mention his name.
P.I.: This is a big question. First off, I am personally acquainted with Slava Surkov better than I am with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, with whom I interacted face to face only once. I met Surkov when he was working as the ORT (Russian Public Television) Deputy Director. I always considered Surkov an expert in PR, journalism and state policy, not an expert in business. He is not a manager — he is more of a project strategist who knows how to come up with a plan and find the right people to implement it. Surkov was good at it, too —, whether at Menatep, ORT, or Alfa-Group. Then he left for Yeltsin’s administration. By the way, if you recall, when Putin first came to power, he initially kept Yeltsin’s entire cabinet…
N.P.: But what about a so-called invasion of the Kremlin by the St. Petersburg clan?
P.I.: At first Putin brought in only a couple of his St. Peterburg buddies —[Viktor] Ivanov and [Igor] Sechin. In fact, I have my own version of how things are set up in there. Russia’s top leadership is divided into two groups: those who simply serve the system and those who actually rule. Putin, Viktor Ivanov, Igor Sechin and figures who are less noticeable but close to them—these are the masters of our country. The rest of them, starting with Medvedev, are those who serve the regime and do not make any strategic decisions. Now Slava Surkov is one of those people who is simply doing their job. He was given the task of creating a “sovereign democracy.” So he came up with the concept, which was then found suitable by the masters, and now Surkov is simply implementing it.
You must understand that all of these famous people can think and say as much as they want that destroying YUKOS was wrong, but it doesn’t change anything. Because there is the mob boss, the “leader of the nation”, who decided that Khodorkovsky must be kept in jail and that Medvedev must become president.
Putin’s conflict with Khodorkovsky is not a personal conflict but a conflict of two different mentalities and different ideas on what direction the country should be going. And Putin’s idea is that the large oil businesses must be controlled by the state and that “l’état — c’est moi.”
N.P.: But there are other participants in this affair, like the forgotten “Darth Vader of the Russian system”, Igor Ivanovich Sechin, for instance.
P.I.: Nobody has forgotten Sechin. We always considered him a key figure. Sechin is an unconditionally gifted person and at the same time a top-notch scoundrel. He managed to have a say on important matters, to remain by Putin’s side for many years, and to influence him, to some degree. It is precisely Sechin whom I would call an effective manager, one who believes that the state can hold the right to manage immeasurable assets and to lead “this bunch of cattle” known as the Russians into the needed direction. After all, it is impossible to manage such a huge and complicated machine as Russia all by yourself. So Sechin acts as the second head of Putin’s dragon. And there are many more heads to this dragon, even though they might be smaller in size.
N.P.: And who would you say is the third dragon’s head influencing Putin?
P.I.: Today, I would say it is the head of the Security Council, [Nikolai] Patrushev. The fourth is [Defense Minister] Anatoly Serdyukov.
N.P.: Let’s talk about you again. You are actively engaged in human rights activity in the U.S. Why do you choose to do that and what exactly do you do?
P.I.: Right now I am trying to push through the Sergei Magnitsky Bill [a prohibition on entry into the U.S. for officials having a relation to the case of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.] I travel to D.C., I engage in political conversations with people, I explain why this Bill is important. It’s good that people like [William] Browder [CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and one of Magnitsky’s clients] thought up this bill and were able to push it through to a certain level. So that officials guilty of Magnitsky’s death, of Khodorkovsky being locked up, of Russian journalists getting killed, would bear responsibility for all of their wrongdoings. On the other hand, we are supportive of Russia joining the World Trade Organization, because this will force the country to observe international norms and rules, which, of course, does not suit Putin. By the same token, I, would clearly love to return to Russia — to this day I remain a Russian citizen, and would love to live there, but Putin’s regime is actively preventing me from doing so.
