- Mikhail Khodorkovsky instructed CNN the West wants to chop off all worldwide money flows to Russia.
- Blocking Putin’s bankers and sanctioning oligarchs is “the one factor that may cease the struggle,” he stated.
- Khodorkovsky stated that the invasion might result in Putin’s fall from energy.
An exiled Russian oligarch who was as soon as the nation’s richest particular person says that the West wants to dam all President Vladimir Putin’s bankers and sanctions must be prolonged to each oligarch to discourage Russia from persevering with to invade Ukraine.
“That is the one factor that may cease the struggle,” Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former CEO of Russian oil large Yukos and an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, instructed CNN.
Western nations and commerce blocs have positioned heavy monetary sanctions on Russia after Putin despatched troops to assault Ukraine. The measures embody banning transactions with Russia’s central financial institution, slicing off some Russian banks’ entry to the SWIFT worldwide funds system, blocking the commerce of luxurious items, and freezing property of Putin, different Kremlin leaders, and particular person oligarchs.
The sanctions are meant to hobble Russia’s economic system and lower off funding to its army, and have up to now despatched the ruble to a file low and contributed to hovering inflation. However some critics say the sanctions have not gone far sufficient as a result of they have not persuaded Putin to name off the invasion.
“The blow to the monetary system has been huge,” Khodorkovsky instructed CNN. “However in the meanwhile, solely 70% of the money flows have been blocked.”
“I’ve by no means advocated sanctions towards Russia as a complete, however the monetary flows must cease,” Khodorkovsky stated.
He stated that to halt the invasion, the West wanted to dam the remaining 30% of money flows to Russia, together with rising the variety of frozen Russian financial institution accounts and blocking Putin’s bankers.
“If we need to cease the struggle, then all of the banking, all of the financial institution accounts of Russia have to be frozen,” he stated, including that “there have to be no exceptions.”
Khodorkovsky stated that Russian oligarchs had been “simply Putin’s footmen” and “can’t affect him.”
“Nonetheless, he can use them as a instrument of affect to affect the west,” he stated. “Subsequently it’s completely vital to cease all of those purseholders of Putin’s till the struggle ends. All of them have to be blocked. And that is the one factor that may cease the struggle.”
He stated that the sanctions would trigger issues globally, however that these had been “incomparable” to the scenario in Ukraine.
Khodorkovsky stated in a earlier interview with CNN that the invasion might result in Putin’s fall from energy. He repeated his prediction in his newest dialog with the broadcaster.
“If the West continues to assist Ukraine, his personal defeat is inevitable,” Khodorkovsky stated. “Because the begin of the struggle, his keep, his time period in energy has been lowered considerably.”
Khodorkovsky was CEO of Yukos, then Russia’s largest oil firm, between 1997 and 2004. He was briefly Russia’s richest particular person in 2003, when Forbes put his web price at $15 billion.
In 2001, Khodorkovsky based Open Russia, an anti-Kremlin political group specializing in democracy and human rights that was shut down by Russian authorities in 2006. The second iteration of the group closed in 2021, which it stated was due to danger of prison prosecution.
Khodorkovsky was arrested and charged with fraud and tax evasion in 2003 and and was sentenced to 9 years in jail in 2005. The European courtroom of human rights rejected Khodorkovsky’s declare that his arrest was politically motivated, however dominated that his rights had been violated.
In 2013, Khodorkovsky was pardoned by Putin and launched from jail a 12 months early. He was exiled from Russia and now lives in London.