Although I do not know Gerard Depardieu personally, I have long admired his acting skills. However, as President of the Institute of Modern Russia, a nonprofit aimed to promote human rights and democratic principles, I am compelled to address his misguided comments about the state of democracy in Russia.
Vladimir Putin’s decision to grant Mr. Depardieu Russian citizenship to help him avoid a higher tax rate, the manner in which he aggressively pushed it through, and his promotion of Russia as a tax haven is an insult to Russian civil society.
As the son of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, I am uniquely positioned to address the nonexistent state of Russian democracy and the patent absurdity of Mr. Putin's policies. My father was one of Russia's largest taxpayers, yet he has been convicted of tax evasion and spent 9 years in prison. He was denied a fair judicial process once it became evident that appropriating his business was more profitable than taxing it. Mr. Putin wants to prove to the rich that Russia is a paradise to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Yet, by not revealing the true price attached to this discount, his actions only serve to prove that Russia's greatest export under Mr. Putin is bitter irony.
