All language subtitles for Citizen.K.2019.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-NTG

I liked the oil industry.
I liked it because of its scale.

I like the huge, vast, wide open spaces
that you work on.

Huge processes.

That's what I liked,
that’s what was interesting

and brought pleasure to me.

He made this decision himself.
He decided to say it.

I am sure he didn't believe
that Putin was so...

...petty.

He had already decided for himself

that he wouldn't be going anywhere,
and if he were arrested, he'd do his time.

He's strange that way.

You need to speak in short sound bites.

They're gonna cut it,
so you have to hurry.

My first phrase was...

please forgive me
for quoting myself here...

What I've seen

allows me to claim that, obviously,

with 100% certainty,

this is an absolutely political case.

Khodorkovsky is accused of fraud
and tax evasion.

Because he didn't hand himself in this
morning, he has been summoned.

The richest man in Russia,
Mikhail Khodorkovsky,

seized at gunpoint
by Russian Special Forces...

US Khodorkovsky is locked up
in an overcrowded Russian prison...

So, to stay out of prison,
why didn't you leave the country?

I don't value my life that much

to exchange it for losing respect.

As for Khodorkovsky,

I have expressed my opinion
on this on many occasions.

But if you want me to say more, I will.

I believe that a thief should sit in jail.

Khodorkovsky has been convicted
of embezzlement by a court.

We're talking about tax evasion
and fraud involving billions of rubles.

Let me remind you the Yukos security chief

is currently serving time for murder.

Do you think the security chief decided
to carry out these crimes all by himself?

To hear Vladimir Putin tell it,

Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a villain
in a real-life gangster movie.

But to Putin's opponents,

Khodorkovsky's ten years
in a Siberian prison made him a hero

for the cause of human rights
and democracy.

Now out of prison, Khodorkovsky
is looking for a third act.

That drew my interest at a time

when we all seem haunted
by Russia's role in the world.

So, I started a film about him.

Okay, Mikhail, any time.

While I could go to Russia, he could not.

He's wanted there for murder.

So, like so many stories about Russia
these days, this one started in London.

If there were some opportunity
for me to return today I would return.

London is nice but I'm a guest here,
and I feel like a guest here.

I live Russia.

All that I do has to do with Russia.

Putin and Khodorkovsky,
they are both very strong.

Right.

-Everyone else, weaker.
-Yes.

But Putin...

respects Khodorkovsky as a rival.

He really respects him
because he is strong.

What event in your life
influenced you most?

An event in my life?

Yes.

I will try to respond seriously.

Perhaps... perhaps it was...

the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This is an adult answer, sorry,
but you asked me an adult question.

I don't know to what extent
you can imagine

the life of an ordinary Soviet person,
an ordinary Soviet family.

My parents worked at the caliper plant.

My father was a design engineer
and my mother was a technologist.

By Soviet standards, a family where
both parents were engineers was very poor.

Up until I started earning money myself,

I understood perfectly well
what it was like

to live without any money at all.

When I earned my first paycheck,
I was 14 years old.

A team of young toughs stepped to me,

wanting to take my money.

It didn't even cross my mind
to give them the money.

And to this day, I've got a scar on my arm

from when they tried to stab me
with a knife.

I did not give my money.

I got into a supplementary
chemistry school.

At home, I tried to create
a little chemical lab myself.

I lived on Cosmonaut Street and right next
to us was Rocket Boulevard.

And on Rocket Boulevard my father and I
launched a rocket that I had built.

My dad was lucky he didn't get hit,
but he was impressed.

All my life, I've been interested

in things that explode.

Why are you filming me
without my permission?

Stalin?

What do you need Stalin for?
He will have you shot!

Understand?

Just behind Red Square,
there's a shopping mall

where actors get paid
for posing in tourist photos

playing Russia's past leaders.

In the winter of 2018, I was told that
the number of Stalins was multiplying.

The local joke was that this was a sign.

Russia was nearing the pageantry
of election season.

18 MARCH
2018

There are contestants on the reality show
Dom-2 that behave better than you!

Shut up stupid woman, shut up.

How are you talking to me?

How should I talk to her if she's dumb?
She's got no brains!

Did you see that? She's an idiot!
Get her out of here!

Well there is no election season.

There's election theater.

Calm down!

Who gave her the right
to throw water at me?

The Kremlin has to create
their own counter-candidates

because no one wants to be
a candidate against Putin

because you will lose anyway.

Today's election theater
is what has become

of Russia's experiment in democracy.

A bold attempt to shift from years
of communist rule

to free-market capitalism.

In 1991, the Soviet Union was convulsed
in a struggle over its future.

While old-guard communists clung
to an empire

and a system of centralized
government control,

a new generation demanded economic
and political freedoms.

Their charismatic leader
was Boris Yeltsin.

Yeltsin! Yeltsin! Yeltsin!

Boris Yeltsin has become
the one rallying point

for opposition to the hardliners.

I was there
as the BBC Moscow correspondent

from '88 through to the end of '91.

This is Martin Sixsmith.

Martin Sixsmith.

Martin Sixsmith.

BBC News Moscow.

Yeltsin was a very,
very inspirational figure.

Back in 1991,
he was the man for the moment.

Yeltsin! Yeltsin! Yeltsin!

It just felt like, you know,

a sort of sea change in the fortunes
of a country.

The democratic process in the country

is becoming increasingly broad
and irreversible.

The people of Russia are becoming
masters of their destiny.

Let's stay strong!

Thank you.

I remember writing all these sort
of great optimistic articles

about how decades
of communism had come to an end

and now we were going to have
a new Russia,

a new Russia with democracy
and freedom and openness.

And looking back, I'm a little ashamed
that I wrote all of that,

because the signs were there,

even then, I think,
that it wasn't going to work out.

I still remember the shock.

The flag isn't red,
there's a tricolor hanging there.

At that point,
I realized that everything had changed.

We knew practically nothing
about capitalism.

It was a jump off the cliff.

I had to consciously understand

whether I want to go with the path
of the Old World,

or I reject it, and take the risk
with Khodorkovsky.

Khodorkovsky was a man
of great intelligence and great vision.

He was also a very decisive man.

As soon as a door opened,
he was straight through it.

He'd been a member of the young
communist organization, the Komsomol.

Not because he believed in communism,

but because Gorbachev
in the perestroika era

started to relax the ban
on private enterprise,

starting with the Komsomol.

By the time the collapse
of the Soviet Union happened in 1991,

he had some cash in his pocket.

He created the first commercial bank
in Russia.

I found a book: Commercial Banks
of Capitalist Countries.

A fabulous book!

It described in great detail,
on a simple level,

how a banking system works.

I said, "Hey, I like this."

"Okay. How can I create a bank?"

Are you a greedy person?

Definitely, definitely. Definitely.

I used to be less greedy,
now I'm greedier.

It's a professional trait.

I have the personality of a banker.
I'm greedy with money.

I just don't understand how people
can exchange those pretty bills

for some crappy goods.

I think one must save, store,
and multiply money.

For me, business was just a game.

Who wants to play, plays.

Who doesn't want to play
does something else.

Khodorkovsky said:
"I thought of this all as a game.

And I was good at playing the game."

Exactly! He was good
at playing the game

but most people were very bad
at playing the game.

Moving from the Soviet Union
into capitalist Russia,

most Russians were completely naive

because they had read
all this propaganda

for all these years that capitalists
were people with, you know,

big cigars and money
coming out of their pockets.

And they imagined
that you would get rich automatically.

When they grew up,
everything was taken care of by the state.

You know, free economy sounds nice,

but you have to make choices
every five minutes.

In the early '90s,
Russians faced lots of choices

they didn't really understand.

Egged on
by American free market boosters,

the Russian government
announced a program

to hand out a chit worth
around 40 dollars to every citizen.

The chits were called vouchers
and could be traded, sold for cash,

or exchanged for shares
in smaller state-owned enterprises.

They were sold as golden tickets
to escape the dead end of communism.

You aren't hurt? What's the rush?

What is this?

Oh, my, you're rich!

Voucher!

Friend of privatization measures!

At first sight it's modest, simple,
but really it's gold!

Mine!

Vow-ow-ow-ow

Vow-ow you are my love.

Now I, a naughty boy,

am not afraid of ruble rate changes!

The meaning is simple!

Vow-ow-ow-ow my darling!

The last three vouchers, 4.50.

Vouchers for sale.

We started buying up these vouchers
because they were in free circulation.

Then, with these vouchers,
we would take part in auctions

for the sale of enterprise shares.

That's how privatization worked.

It was a time of great economic hardship

and the ordinary people didn't realize
what this piece of paper was worth.

But the people who did sent out people
with suitcases full of cash

and they said: "Look, you don't need
that piece of paper!

Here, we'll give you ten dollars
and you can go and buy some bread."

I wasn't saying,
"I'll give you three rubles,"

and then I give you one instead.

That's not what happened.

I said, "I'll give you three rubles.
It's up to you to sell or not.

If you can sell it right now for the price
of a Volga car, great!

If you can't,
I've only got three rubles for you."

So a beggar person

is a beggar only because they don't want
to work, am I understanding correctly?

Well, let's say that the society doesn't
react to it that much yet,

but mainly because beggars consider it
a more advantageous occupation.

Mikhail Borisovich asked us to attract
people of high professional caliber.

That is how we acquired Platon Lebedev.

He was a young but prominent economist.

We bought about 100 substantial
enterprises.

We had to fight for each of them,
as the competition was high.

We stood firm on our feet by then.

The more Khodorkovsky made,

the more vouchers and companies
he could buy,

either on the open market
or in backroom deals.

It was gangster capitalism,

with a rule of law as weak
and bendy as a rubber band.

Under communism,
the absence of personal wealth

meant that there were few targets
for violent criminals.

Now, organized crime groups prey
on the new rich of the capitalist era.

Moscow has become
the murder capital of Europe.

If you were rich, and people knew
you were rich, you were a target.

It was Wild West capitalism.

In America, Wild West lasted
for many decades.

In our country, we managed to fit it
into seven years.

Now watch closely.

I got it. I got the shot on camera.

In '92, we launched The Moscow Times
and we had a lot of news.

A lot of people got killed and many, many
companies were looking for protection.

The Moscow Times developed pretty well

and then two years later,
I launched Cosmopolitan,

which from day one was
an enormous commercial success

and that attracted a lot of shady people.

I thought, you know, maybe it's better

to get one of these rising oligarchs
as a shareholder.

There was one guy in particular
that I got interested in.

And that was Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

He moved to a very fancy castle in Moscow.

Machine guns all over the place.

He had former KGB colonels
running his security.

This was not Russia.
This was Khodorkovsky land, you know.

Lebedev had a nice house.

Nevzlin was next door.

And then there was Khodorkovsky.

I said, " The Moscow Times
is a fiercely independent newspaper.

And if we sell ten percent of our shares,

we want to remain
a fiercely independent newspaper."

And he thought about it, and he said yes.

He was an extremely intelligent person,

but of course, using every trick
in the book available to him.

And at that time,

this transition from communism
to capitalism,

was so fast that it was impossible
for the legal structure to keep up.

In Russia, laws are kind
of an iffy question.

There is even a popular saying
in our country.

The strictness of Russian laws
is compensated for

by the lack of obligation to follow them.

Boris Berezovsky, who was one
of the big seven oligarchs,

very famously said,

"The seven of us controlled 50 percent

of the whole Russian economy."

Two of the Oligarchs placed big bets
on the future of television.

Boris Berezovsky bought
a national network called Channel 1.

He thought he would cash in by turning
a Soviet propaganda vehicle

into a selling machine.

Vladimir Gusinsky set his sights
on starting a new network called NTV.

NTV PRESENTS

The original concept of NTV
was a TV channel

which is not controlled by the government.

An investor was found
who was Vladimir Gusinsky.

He didn't know anything about TV at all
but there was a benefit.

He badly underestimated
how much it would cost.

Gusinsky spent hundreds of millions
of dollars buying movies,

launching game shows

and building an independent
news division from scratch.

Thanks to the Soviets,
almost everyone in Russia had TV sets

so the money started rolling in.

The oligarchs organized
between themselves,

"I do the oil,
you do the telecommunications,

you do the real estate."
So, it was one big scam.

For the oligarchs, the scam
of Russian capitalism was only possible

as long as there was a political system

that protected private property
and individual rights.

Call it democracy.

But if the communists returned to power,

well, that would have been bad
for business.

Yeltsin was up for re-election,

but the country was
in a really, really, bad state.

People looked around,

"If this is, you know, the capitalism
that they promised,

we don't want anything to do with it."

The government coffers were empty,

so people's salaries weren't being paid,
pensions weren't being paid,

and if you imagine, as a president,

who's not paying people's pensions
and people's salaries,

you're not going to be very popular.

It really did look as if Gennady Zyuganov,
the communist leader,

was going to beat Yeltsin hands down
at the election.

At that time, I was speaking to Zyuganov,
and he said,

"Mikhail Borisovich, we respect you,

and if we win,
you will become a general director.

But the ownership of the enterprise,
excuse me,

is going to be state ownership."

I said, "Okay, Gennady Andreyevich.

We'll work to ensure
that you don't become president."

The problem was that Yeltsin
at that point was so weak.

He was at a three percent approval rate.

He was sick, he had all these
heart attacks, he was down and out!

One of the very new things
which NTV started doing

was a puppet show called "Kukly."

It was a really scathing, satirical--
Satirical show.

Kiss me

Kiss me a lot

In one of the shows,
Mr. Yeltsin was portrayed as Don Quixote

and the head of his security was portrayed
as his Sancho Panza.

It's not Russian tradition
to laugh at the president.

Laughing at, at the tsar , so to say,

at the emperor, was something unheard--
unheard of.

Let's drink for the most deserving
to win in the election!

Yeltsin was in a very difficult situation.

We'd film him and he'd be staggering
across the room,

barely able to stand upright.

It was clear that he was quite ill,

but, of course, there was
a natural sympathy

and support for Yeltsin from Russian TV.

Yes, probably it was not very fair
but his opponent was a communist

who openly was saying that no such thing
as freedom of the press

would exist under his rule.

Openly supporting Yeltsin,

NTV hatched an elaborate plan
to hide the President's ill health.

Malashenko sent a crew
to Yeltsin's country home

where he was secretly confined to bed rest
after a major heart attack.

We had to demonstrate
that Yeltsin is still alive, at least.

He was too seriously ill
to travel to Moscow,

so, we took some furniture
from his Kremlin office

and we reproduced it
at his country house.

So, at this set, he was visited
by Prime Minister Chernomyrdin

and Yeltsin spoke with him for 30 seconds,

signed some paper and it was shown on TV.

Many times I was told
that it's a thing I shouldn't do

My response is very simple,
it was and it is.

That I would rather elect a corpse
of Yeltsin than a live Zyuganov.

We had suddenly this amazing,
new Yeltsin

and, you know, maybe the doctors had given
him a shot of adrenaline or something,

but I think
what had really reinvigorated him

was the deal he'd cut with the oligarchs.

They struck a Faustian bargain,

which has become known
as "loans-for-shares."

In every Faustian bargain,
the devil is in the details.

On the verge of collapse,

Yeltsin's government
desperately needed cash

to pay salaries and pensions.

The oligarchs agreed to funnel money
to the state

by making a series of loans the government
couldn't afford to repay.

When the loans did default,
the oligarchs got the right

to buy Russia's biggest state enterprises

in sham auctions run
by the oligarchs themselves.

On TV, the deals played like arms-length
banking transactions.

In reality, the oligarchs had cut
inside deals

to pay bargain basement prices
for Russia's most valuable assets.

Khodorkovsky was interested in a massive
state oil company called Yukos.

His bank, Menatep, was the only bidder
at the auction,

which was run by… Menatep.

At the time, Yukos was valued
at five billion dollars.

Menatep offered and paid
what it had on hand, 310 million.

A steal.

It was all conflict of interest.

There was no transparency.
It was just one big mess.

You know, we wrote about this stuff,

and Menatep was a shareholder
of The Moscow Times.

Khodorkovsky himself was not sitting
on our board,

but Leonid Nevzlin,
his right-hand man was.

So this Nevzlin was, you know, fuming.

Was there ever any pressure on you

to write something
that was kind of pro Yukos?

Of course!

I was at the press conference given
by the winners after the auction.

I asked him a question about Yukos,

and Khodorkovsky suddenly

started to answer me, formally,
that he was managing the bank,

that the bank was not managing
the oil company,

this was such utter bullshit
that I couldn't hide my disappointment

and I made this face,

and, suddenly, after the press conference,
Khodorkovsky came up to me.

He approached me to explain,

almost to apologize for his lie to me.

He was not comfortable lying.

Naturally, of course, it wasn't fair.

But, I don't think this was a bad deal
for the state.

Oil production started dropping,
precipitously, in the country.

Plus, the employees weren't getting paid
for six months at a time.

It was proposed to us
that we give all the money that we had.

These companies actually
resumed normal operation quite quickly.

The political problem disappeared.

The workers started being paid
their salaries before the elections.

This was the biggest mistake
of the oligarchs,

and the journalists, and the liberals.

I blame them as much as the communists
or any other forces, even more.

Because they were the people
with the vision and the will to change

and they were going to create
a new Russia.

And what do they do, the first time
they get into trouble

in, you know, in '96,
their candidate may lose?

They just throw out the whole idea
of normal democratic process.

Today it's hard to say
did Yeltsin really win or not.

I personally think he did actually win,
because he was ready for power.

Power in any country,

and especially in Russia,

is always a projection
of people's readiness

to defend it with arms in hand.

If you aren't ready to defend
your position with arms in hand,

you're not interesting anymore.

Just not interesting.

Putin is also a product of the '90s.

Vladimir Putin came from nowhere.

He'd been a minor official in the KGB
in East Germany

when the Wall collapsed
and found himself out of a job.

He found a post up in Leningrad

with the then mayor,
a man called Anatoly Sobchak.

If you worked your whole life
with Sobchak,

the most liberal mayor in Russia,
you must be an okay guy.

That's what I thought.

In fact, Putin was accused of launching
a kickback scheme

to embezzle money meant
for food for St. Petersburg

which was facing a famine.

When members of the city council raised
the issue, Sobchak did not fire Putin.

He promoted him to deputy mayor.

As if to commemorate the moment,

Putin commissioned this documentary
about himself.

He kept the title simple.

POWER

Are you a lucky person?

Until this day, I couldn't complain
about my destiny,

which can lead to a conclusion
that I am lucky.

What happened in 1996 - can one say
that it opened up the way for Putin?

Of course, no, no, of course.

De facto, everything that
was happening back then

was opening up the way
to the future dictatorship.

When Putin's boss failed
to win re-election in 1996,

Putin and some friends flew
to Moscow

where they landed
low-level jobs at the Kremlin.

Goodbye.

Putin held six jobs in three years.

By 1999, he was prime minister
and Yeltsin's likely successor.

But Putin didn't get to the top
all by himself.

The oligarchs were, in fact, the force,

that in many ways,
brought Vladimir Putin to power.

Putin was put there very much
to carry on Yeltsin's rule,

with the help of ultimately four people.

Yeltsin's daughter and her husband,

and two of the oligarchs
who were close to Yeltsin,

Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich.

They were looking for a successor

who would, basically, guarantee
their safety and guarantee their wealth.

I've never gotten into any conflicts
with any of the so-called oligarchs.

One of the so-called oligarchs set
about selling Putin to the public.

Boris Berezovsky used his TV channel
to mock Putin's political rivals

and promote his image as a tough leader.

When a series of explosions
killed hundreds in Moscow,

some suspected Putin himself
might have been involved.

But at the time, TV news footage
highlighted Putin's tough response

to the bombings which he blamed
on Chechen terrorists.

We'll chase terrorists everywhere.

If they are in the airport,
we'll get them in the airport.

If we catch them - I beg your pardon -
in the toilet,

we'll rub them out in the outhouse.

That's it, question closed.

He's tough. And I think this is the thing

that we need in this country
at the moment, some toughness.

I...

I... am leaving.

Yeltsin left office on December 31st, 1999

and appointed Putin acting president.

Putin, in turn, promise to forgive Yeltsin

for any sins or crimes
he may have committed.

It was another inside deal, sealed
by a new election a few months later.

Putin, running as an incumbent,
won easily.

Eighteen years later,
he's still in the same office.

Yes, I am listening. Good evening.

Yes, please.

Bye.

Putinism is a way to restore pride
in your country.

Putinism in itself,
there's nothing wrong with it.

When Putin started, he did a lot
of good things for the country

because it was a mess.

People were completely dispirited.

People longed to...

to be part of something.

You know, if you grew up
in a world power

and then the rest of the world
sees you as a joke,

as a banana republic,
it's very humiliating.

So, people really needed such a figure.

It seemed to me that, ideologically,
he was one of our people.

A man of our generation

who gets it, who wants to push Russia
in the same direction that we want for it,

that is towards openness,
towards democracy.

Boy, was I mistaken.

He's a very talented KGB guy.

Very talented.

You like leftists?

Putin will behave around you

in a way that you will be convinced
that he's a leftist.

You like nationalists?

Putin is going to act around you

in a way that you'll think
that he's a bit of a nationalist.

You like conservatives?

Talk to him and you will get an impression
that he's a conservative.

That's a talent.

Putin had declared that he supported
the liberal views of Yeltsin

and that he was going to keep Russia
on a course of liberty and openness.

But even then you could see that Putin
was looking for a way

to re-calibrate this relationship

between political power
and the oligarchs.

You're the ones
who shaped this government,

mainly through controlled political
and semi-political structures.

At first, he said, "Look, we'll do a deal.

I'm not going to question the results
of the privatization process,

which meant, I'm not going to try
and take back your business empires

that you've got through
the loans-for-shares auctions

as long as you keep out of politics."

For the moment,
that separation of business and politics

served Khodorkovsky's interest.

For Khodorkovsky,
business had been hard enough.

He left banking to focus on Yukos.

He traveled to remote regions of Siberia

to learn how to pull oil
out of the ground, move it and sell it.

And he had to motivate workers
and managers

who never needed to care
about efficiency or competition.

All these shitty local oil companies

that, you know, just lost money
and were totally inefficient.

He turned that around.
He started streamlining these companies.

Khodorkovsky, from a business perspective,
did an amazing job.

But in those small towns in Siberia,

a lot of the people who work there,
they lost their job.

Many local mayors were very unhappy

and some mayors died.

One of those Mayor's was Vladimir Petukhov
of Nefteyugansk, a major Yukos hub.

Petukhov was furious with Khodorkovsky
for laying off nearly 15,000 workers,

delays in payroll and battles
overpaying local taxes.

Khodorkovsky claimed that Petukhov
was in the grip of Chechen gangsters

and using taxes to pay bribes.

So Khodorkovsky flew to Nefteyugansk
with bags of cash

to make direct payments to teachers,
nurses and city workers.

In protest, the mayor embarked
on a hunger strike

until, finally, a deal was cut.

But four days later, the mayor was shot.

I got a call. I remember I asked,
"Is he alive?"

He replied and I'll remember
his words forever,

"What do you mean alive, there's a glass
full of brains that spilled out."

Khodorkovsky killed him!
Khodorkovsky!

Petukhov? During the wild '90s
he stood up for the town

and paid a high price.

We have a monument for him.

I first went to Nefteyugansk to look
at the oil industry

weeks after the murder of the mayor.

And Khodorkovsky was hated there

because Khodorkovsky was already,
by that time, a billionaire

and these were the people
who were, basically, unable to get food.

I got angry, as a young journalist
and I wrote what I saw.

I don't know whether Khodorkovsky's men
or he himself were involved

in the death of the mayor.
I wouldn't put it past them.

Petukhov, the mayor, was murdered
on Khodorkovsky's birthday.

Birthdays have been interesting.

The other famous case
is Anna Politkovskaya,

the crusading journalist who was
investigating a lot of Kremlin corruption

and she was murdered on Putin's birthday.

If I had thought
that this would end the way it did

I would have made much more
of an effort to investigate this case.

This was 1998 and so, I was very busy
with completely different things.

And I just simply didn't have time
to deal with this.

Some observers called it a meltdown.

Russian stocks are at their lowest levels

since President Boris Yeltsin
had heart surgery in 1996.

The biggest concern now is that
the Russian government

will be forced to devalue the ruble.

The ruble collapsed.

The situation was a hot mess.

So I came out to our regions.

Out in the regions, the situation
was absolutely dramatic.

In one day,
prices on all groceries tripled.

I still remember in Nefteyugansk...

700 people were sitting there,

they were representatives
of all the work units,

and by law they are required to vote
to reduce their own salaries.

And I addressed the people.
I said, "This is the situation.

You need to vote for a salary reduction
of 30%."

People are asking, "When are you going
to give it back to us?"

And I said, "In one year."

And they voted for the reduction.

I still had to do
very drastic staff reductions.

You can't imagine what it's like
to lay off

literally tens of thousands of people.

That's, well... it's real heavy.

People who worked for me...

They would stand at their workplace,
expecting that I pay them.

But if I don't have money,
they would simply faint...

Faint from hunger.

And you look at this and you understand.

"That's my responsibility.
That's my responsibility.

Either I'm going to figure a way out

or I don't even know what to do."

At that moment, you understand
that business is not a game,

not in the least bit a game.

I understood that I owed people a lot.

And that I needed somehow to
give it back to them.

He was opening schools.
You know, his foundation was doing a lot.

He was the entrepreneur with the vision.

The type of entrepreneur
that Russia needed

to create this new economy.

And he immediately brought in
Western know-how, new technology,

and, in a few years, built one
of the best oil companies in the world.

Khodorkovsky's work at Yukos paid off
when the ruble rose along with oil prices.

Just after the turn of the century,
the Russian economy was booming,

powered in large part, by oil.

That was a business victory, but it was
also a moment of political opportunity.

Who would take credit for the turnaround?

The former KGB agent-turned-politician?

Or the ruthless oligarch whose attention
was quickly turning to politics?

I did not expect to see in him
this interest in politics.

Even today, all other Russian oligarchs

they all distance themselves
from politics, saying,

"No no, no, no way,
we aren't interested in politics,

just business, just business,
we're just interested in money."

And Khodorkovsky suddenly began
to talk about politics.

Modern society can only be built
on the basis of democracy.

Although democracy has a hard time
taking hold in our country

because we didn't have democracy
for 500 years.

It seems like some fantasy to us
but in reality it's not.

Khodorkovsky is an interesting man,
because now he has all this money...

he started thinking about, you know,

what's next, what is my role in society?

And this is where he clashes with Putin.

His intolerance for personal criticism
has been growing

with each passing year.

You could say the government is bad.

You might say that communism is better
than capitalism.

He couldn't care less.

But say that Putin is ridiculous,

and you'll have serious problems.

Rub them out in the outhouse!
Rub them out in the outhouse!

There are rumors that Putin in particular
didn't like one program

where he was portrayed as a midget man
who became the ruler of the country

due to the power of magic.

At some point, magic disappear

and people see this midget man
for what he is.

Yeltsin could be angry at some program
but there were no reprisals.

Putin and his people had
an entirely different attitude towards TV.

Putin was the product of television.
They made him.

He was absolutely nobody, I mean,
nobody ever heard of Vladimir Putin.

The fact that television could
actually help make him into president

within six months...

I think was enough for him
to understand the real power.

If TV could make his reputation,
it could also break it.

We've swum to the hatch.

Seven months after Putin became president,

a terrible underwater explosion
ripped apart the Kursk,

a Russian nuclear submarine.

As the nation anxiously watched
the efforts to rescue a few survivors,

Putin was photographed hosting a barbeque
at a seaside resort.

For ten days, relentless TV news reports
shredded Putin's reputation

by chronicling the incompetence
and dishonesty of the government.

To recover, Putin rushed to talk
to the widows of the sailors.

But rather than take responsibility,

he looked to administer blame
on television.

There are people on TV today
who are shouting more than everybody else

and for the past ten years have been
destroying this army and fleet

where people die today.

Putin, as somebody who was both born
and bred in the Soviet Union,

but more importantly, bred by the KGB,

has this very conspiratorial view
of the world,

and that view of the world suggests
that people don't have any free will.

And history, therefore,
doesn't have any free will,

that everything is pre-planned,
plotted by somebody,

and so, he immediately assumed
that this was a plot to subvert him.

That was a very emotional, I think,
genuine outburst.

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.
There's lots...

We remember to this day
his participation in Larry King's TV show.

What happened with the submarine?

When he was asked what happened
with the submarine, he said...

"It sank."

...and he smiled.

When he felt those were serious blows
to his reputation,

he decided that it would be
much more efficient

to force the mass media to work for him.

-Thank you, Mr. President.
-Thank you, Larry.

Putin's command of the media
was quickly evident.

Even in the TV images of one
of the grieving relatives

whose voice was silenced
with eerie efficiency.

I can't say anything!

Yes, I'm saying it all openly
and in front of the whole world.

Bastards!

Putin and his people
have a KGB background.

I am talking about control.

What you don't control
is a potential threat.

What you control is safe.

Everything should be controlled.

The first thing they did
was to establish control over TV

because uncontrolled TV
was a threat.

After the Kursk episode,

Putin's government took over the two
major TV networks controlled by oligarchs.

Facing the prospect of prison,

Gusinsky and his chief executive,
Malashenko, fled the country.

Berezovsky soon followed.

When Boris Berezovsky fell out with Putin
in such a spectacular and public way,

he fled to London
and I had quite a lot to do with him.

He asked me if I would write
his biography for him.

So I spoke to him over the years,
you know, socially,

and at times, I recorded
the conversations, as well.

I remember well my last meeting
with Vladimir Putin,

after the tragedy of the Kursk submarine.

And the most terrible for me,
during our meeting,

he told me that I tried to destroy him.

After that I recognize
that he is really... not good man.

The first time I recognized him
not as my friend.

But as a wrong man.

Well, he kicked Berezovsky out
and took control of the first channel.

He kicked Gusinsky out of the country
and took control of NTV.

He had the airwaves.

This was a successful year for Russia,

both in domestic affairs
and foreign policy.

Russia is being treated with more trust
and respect in the world.

Once he controlled the narrative
and the image,

which is everything in Russia,
he could take then control

of the commanding heights of the economy,
the oil and take on the biggest tycoon.

Putin had a very valid point.

Half of the parliament
is on the payroll of Khodorkovsky.

Many of the top people in the oil ministry
are people appointed by the oligarchs.

He thinks, you know, "What is this?

If I want to be a real president,
I need to have my own people

and I need to get these people
out of politics."

It was said at the time
that you were busy courting,

or even buying influence in the,
in the Duma.

We only dealt
with our industry-related problems.

Did this require buying MPs?

It was exactly as it happens
in the United States Congress.

"Will you support our campaign
in the next election?"

We felt that the country
should gradually develop

in the direction of openness.

Business should develop from the point
of view of greater transparency.

We thought that if Putin decides
to proceed in this direction,

then we would get serious
competitive advantages

on international markets.

Khodorkovsky decided to make Yukos
a public company

after realizing it would be worth more.

He will get richer and

he had this idea
about merging with some oil major.

They were negotiating with Exxon.

Khodorkovsky invited in the head
of Exxon Mobil and said,

"Look, my company is open, transparent,
why don't we have a partnership,

we can be a massive player
on the world market."

If you are Vladimir Putin
sitting in the Kremlin at a time

when the world is going to war over oil,

and you have your least favorite oligarch
saying to the Americans,

"I've got lots of oil,
do you want to come and share it?"

You know, it's like a slap in the face.

The authorities must have seen him
as a threat at some point,

because the man has political views,
he has goals, he's got some vision,

and he also has the money.

He's dangerous.

The struggle for power surfaced
with an oil deal.

A small company, Northern Oil,
paid seven million dollars

for the rights to an oil field
which it sold soon after

for 600 million dollars
to a government company, Rosneft.

The man at the center of the deal
was Igor Sechin,

a close friend of Vladimir Putin.

Were kickbacks involved?

Khodorkovsky wanted to make an issue
of the deal

at an upcoming nationally
televised forum on corruption.

The night before the meeting,

he dragged me outside
to talk about Northern Oil.

He asked me, "How do you think Putin
is going to react to this?"

I said that he would react calmly
if he had nothing to do with it,

and terribly if he had gotten
a part of the bribe.

I understood it was a big risk.

But this isn't the first risk I have
taken in my life at that point.

Putin had asked
Russia's biggest businessmen

to a roundtable discussion on television
on the theme of corruption.

Most of the guys who took part
had the wisdom

to figure out that it was a little bit
of a fig leaf.

Look - Putin shakes hands
with each person one by one.

But Khodorkovsky came armed
with a whole pile of slides,

which reported that Russians felt
that corruption existed

at the highest levels of government.

I couldn't bring myself to watch it.

...the scale of corruption in Russia ....

I said, "Vladimir Vladimirovich.

Does it mean anything to you
that 25% of the population believe

that you are among those taking bribes?"

That was, of course, edited out.

There are probably other factors.

And they then got into the discussion

of what Khodorkovsky thought
was a dodgy deal.

Now you've mentioned Rosneft
and the deal with Sibneft...

This Northern Oil deal was Putin happy
that you mentioned it?

Oh, he was thrilled.

This was the first time he went
for a head-to-head conflict.

He wouldn't discuss the transaction.

He started with,

"And you?

I know that you have excess reserves."

There are state companies that
need to increase their reserves,

that don't have enough reserves.

While some other oil companies like,
for example, Yukos, have extra reserves.

How it got them is the question
within the scope of today's discussion.

"And you had problems
with the tax authorities,

though you did resolve them."

...including the questions

of paying and not paying taxes.

We've already discussed
that at one point, right? Recently.

That was unexpected.

But these issues came to be somehow.

You saw from the facial expression
of Putin,

he was really, really angry.

Especially, coming from Khodorkovsky.

That is why I pass the puck
back to you.

In my life, I had overstepped so
many different lines

that for me,

this wasn't something out of the ordinary.

Well, okay. So the guy's not happy.

So what?

There were all these warning signs.
Many of his people were arrested.

It had happened with Gusinsky before me,
and with Berezovsky.

It's really standard practice.

It was hard for me to understand
why Khodorkovsky was smiling

or how he could say that what was
happening was standard practice.

Just four months after the TV battle
with Putin,

a top security official at Yukos,
Alexei Pichugin, was arrested

and tried in secret in connection
with a series of contract killings,

which would include
the murder of mayor Petukhov.

That was strange
because five years earlier,

the case had been dropped
when the likely killers,

two Chechen gangsters,
had been murdered.

Now the Kremlin was pushing a fresh story.

The Chechens were replaced
with new killers who suddenly confessed

and testified that Pichugin
ordered the hit.

When Pichugin refused
to implicate Khodorkovsky,

Pichugin claimed he was dosed
with psychotropic drugs.

When that didn't work,
the new trigger men claimed

the order to kill the mayor had come
from Pichugin's boss, Leonid Nevzlin.

Then Pichugin was arrested.

We didn't even understand at first
that this had anything to do with us.

It made me tense.
I started looking into the issue,

I couldn't get any results.
And then - Lebedev.

Then it all became clear.

Khodorkovsky didn't want to give in,

and he didn't want
to leave his people behind.

As for me, I did warn him
that I wasn't up to it,

and it would be best for me to leave.

And he agreed.

If they want...

that I go to prison,

given the system of behavior that has just
been demonstrated to us,

this is easy, they are welcome.

They can do it.

Nastya, this is not supposed to be eaten.
There's a good one...

The investigators and the prosecutors
have let me down so far.

They can't dig up anything.

As soon as I finish my trips
to the regions,

I will start congratulating the company
with the new year.

One evening I visited him at home,
at his request.

I consulted him about what he should do
if he were to be summoned for questioning.

I told him then, "Mikhail Borisovich...

They're going to arrest you.
You've got to leave."

And he answered me then,

"Anton, you can't even imagine
what you have just said,

what you are offering to me.

This is just unacceptable for me."

I understood by then that
the masks had been cast off

and I had very little time
to appeal to the people.

I believe that it's possible to build
a normal democratic society in our country

but for that, someone needs
to be the first not to be afraid.

I am not afraid.

I took a trip around the country to tell
the people what was happening.

And to urge them to take part
in the election

in favor of the democratic forces.

So we flew into Novosibirsk, landed,
for refueling.

I look out and I see
that the entire airfield

is surrounded by men in black uniforms.

I'm thinking to myself,
"Here we are. Very well. Okay."

...Mikhail Khodorkovsky
seized at gunpoint

by Russian special forces...

...Khodorkovsky is locked up
in an overcrowded Russian prison.

After I was arrested I was told
that my colleague, partner,

Platon Lebedev,

had been thrown in the dungeon and told
that he would never leave there.

So I said,
"All right, then you're going to have

two corpses on your hands.

Until you let Platon Lebedev out
from the dungeon,

I'm going to go on a dry hunger strike."

A dry hunger strike is when you refuse
not only food, but water as well.

What's important about such
a hunger strike is that it's very quick.

Either they fulfill your demands quickly
or that's it.

Did your hunger strike succeed?
Was Lebedev let out of the dungeon?

If they hadn't released him, I wouldn't
be sitting here talking with you.

I don't joke around.

I remember calling my editor and said,
they just arrested Khodorkovsky.

And the response from London was,

"Ah, well, it couldn't have happened
to a better man."

I don't want to paint Khodorkovsky
as an angel, he wasn't.

But I was rather horrified
when I saw Vladimir Putin

holding a copy of my story,

saying, "Look, even the Western press
said he was a terrible man."

It was very clear that this is not
about finding the truth

or finding what happened.
It was about putting papers together,

so that it looks like it's a real case,
but in fact it's not a real case.

Can I give you the letter?

Look - Maria Logan.

As someone with a legal background
in Russia,

I had to try to interpret and explain this
to American lawyers.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev
were put in a cage

to show everyone who is the boss here.

Khodorkovsky was accused of tax evasion,
embezzlement, all these things.

But, it's particularly hard to say
whether or not he's guilty

because the law was in such
a fluid state in those years.

All the other oligarchs
did exactly the same things,

and they were free to keep doing it.

During the first trial, the Russian
attorneys were trying to pretend

like they're defending an ordinary case.

That was a mistake.

I demonstrated that I was participating
in a legal procedure.

But it was not a legal procedure.

The state prosecution...

The Russian prosecutors think
the more papers they put together,

the more it looks legitimate.

There were, like, hundreds of volumes
of material of basically nothing.

For example, they used
company telephone directory

as an evidence of the criminal enterprise.

There were two lines of attack,
if you will.

One line was on Khodorkovsky.

On top of that, they mounted an
attack on the Yukos company.

Yukos as a company was accused
of not paying taxes for six years.

Khodorkovsky was discussing payment
of back taxes

that would settle Yukos's debts
to the state.

And when Yukos agreed to that,
then another demand would come in.

The demand would be higher this time.

So it wasn't a case of wanting to recoup
the taxes that hadn't been paid.

It was a case of wanting to destroy Yukos.

There was a bankruptcy auction.

And I was denied access to it
with no basically legitimate reason.

Can I show you the letter? No?

...recognize as participants
of the auction,

the LLC, Baikal Finance Group...

A mysterious newly created company,
Baikal Finance Group,

suddenly emerged to bid for Yukos.

But Baikal had no assets

and its headquarters turned out to be
a vodka bar two hours outside of Moscow.

When Baikal won the auction,

it sold Yukos
to the government controlled, Rosneft.

ROSNEFT

Rosneft is the state oil company
and it is run

by one of Putin's closest friends,
Igor Sechin.

Sechin was Putin's man

and when Putin renationalized
a lot of companies,

he created a new class.

Oligarch 2.0.

You all know perfectly well

how privatization took place
in the early '90s.

Many market players of that time
received state property

worth many billions.

Today, the state,
using absolutely legal market tools,

establishes its interests.

I think this is quite normal.

ROSNEFT

In most countries in the world,
oil companies are owned by the state.

Nothing wrong with that.

Good news for the Russians.

Yeah. That's how 99 percent
of the people saw it.

KHORDOVSKY, GO TO PRISON!

He stole from the state, not from me.
From the state.

And we are the state.

PUTIN, PROTECT US
FROM PEOPLE LIKE KHODORKOVSKY

I swear, that in exercising the powers

of the President
of the Russian Federation...

The fact that the oligarchs
were so reviled

and resented by the Russian people

was a fantastically useful tool for Putin.

Putin very famously and publicly declared,

"I'm going to destroy the oligarchs
as a class."

And every Russian would know
where that quotation came from

because Stalin said, very famously,

"I'm going to destroy the rich peasants
as a class."

And when he did bring
the oligarchs to heel,

it was incredibly popular.

What he said to Khodorkovsky
and to the country,

is that nothing belongs to you.

That you have no legitimate right to it.

We control everything and we can
take it away from you, if you cross us.

In the first trial, they could
have given him a maximum of ten.

The prosecution asked for ten.
The court gave him nine.

-Have you lost faith in this country?
-I lost it the day we elected Putin.

We will fight to free him because he
was imprisoned for God knows what.

We still can't understand
what they were saying.

They put me into a rail car.

And off we went.

Based on the number of lunch boxes,

you can have an idea
of where they're taking you,

because you get one lunch box
per day.

I counted seven lunches in there.

Where?!?

This was a heavy place,
right on the border of the Chinese desert.

It felt like Mars.

"Rise at 6:45.

Breakfast is what time is left.
I have an hour to pack up,

including exercise,
the inevitable shaving

and listening to official news
on state channels.

It's just that every morning
I think of my children.

They would be getting ready
to go to their "work" just as I was.

And your kids grow up...

My son got married,
my daughter is starting college.

The younger ones just started school
and all that without me around.

I'm afraid they'll finish it
without me as well.

My wife promises me she'll know
how to explain that to them.

My parents are not getting younger.

The hardest thing in prison routine
is being unable to predict one's future.

The guards are well aware of that

and they use it
for psychological pressure."

Do you think that being in prison
gave you special insight into Putin

and the people around him?

Yes.

The way that the criminals think

is exactly the way that the criminal group
around Putin thinks.

It's a criminal mentality.

In the criminal world, building relations
starts with the use of force,

because everything is built on force.

I use force against you,
and I see how you react.

If you resist, if we're of equal force,

now we can talk.

If you want to achieve something
in prison,

you've got to put your life on the line.

My people told me that

the head of my legal department at Yukos,
Vasily Aleksanyan,

had been put in jail, too.

He spent a year there
and it turned out he was HIV-positive.

Have I blown up a train?
Have I killed 200 people?

What the...?

How can you justify what is going on here?

People from the prosecutor's office
came to him and told him,

"We know that you're gravely ill.

Testify against Khodorkovsky
and we will release you."

He said no, that would be false testimony.

We demanded that he be transferred
to a civilian hospital.

They refused.

And I said, "I announce a hunger strike

until a decision is made on his transfer
to a normal civilian hospital."

People need to understand
that you're ready to croak.

If you're ready to croak,
you can get something out of them.

They satisfied my demand after ten days.

In the end he got full blown AIDS.

From stage 1 to stage 4 in one year.

They released him and he died soon after.

Of course, this was murder.

Former oil tycoon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky,

who was jailed for embezzlement
and tax evasion in 2003,

is back in court.

New charges brought against him
could see his term extended until 2017.

The second trial was announced

when Khodorkovsky was coming up
to the point where he might get parole.

It seems fairly clear
Putin did not want him to get parole.

As for Khodorkovsky,

I believe that a thief should sit in jail.

They accused me of stealing
all the oil that Yukos had produced

in the entire time that I had worked
at Yukos,

plus another 70 million tons.

The second trial was a sequel
in black comedy.

In the first trial, the government
convicted Khodorkovsky

for not paying taxes on the oil he sold.

In the second, the government claimed
he had never sold the oil.

He had stolen it.

But if he had stolen it,
where did he put it?

And if he never sold it,
why did he owe the taxes?

The idea that Yukos stole from themselves
all the oil that was mined was just wild.

Being accused of physically
stealing 350 million tons of oil

is not only something that is impossible
to prove,

but something that is impossible
to even imagine.

It's a set of railroad cars that encircles
the Earth three times on the equator.

So, even people who aren't lawyers
understood it.

-Is it not clear?
-Yes, it is.

What I did in the second trial was,
I said, "Guys!

We understand that there's me
and there's you - you are actors!

You look like a court,
but you aren't a court.

You look like a prosecutor,
but you're not a prosecutor.

And I will troll you,

mock you, as much as
procedure allows me to do.

I'm going to show that you're idiots.
You are puppets.

You are nobodies."

The prosecutor, Lakhtin -

I told my lawyers,
"No need to interrupt him -

just let him talk,
and let us laugh our heads off."

He was creating a good mood in us.

He is just

a fantastic idiot.

The number of people
who became his supporters

increased by geometric progression.

Maybe that's a traditional
Russian historical habit:

When the power starts trampling on him,
people resent it and sympathize.

Freedom! Freedom!

Shame!

Freedom to Mikhail Khodorkovsky!

Freedom to Khodorkovsky!

Shame!

It's very important for me
how this trial will finish

because according to it,

I'll know which country me
and my children will live in.

Putin is very afraid of Khodorkovsky.

And he wants him to be
in the prison forever.

And this is against Russia.

This is against Russia future.

And it means that this is not a country
of law.

This is a country of dictatorship.

I remember, a few days or weeks
after my arrest

I was informed that President Putin had
decided that I would have to,

as I was told, "eat prison slop"
for eight years.

Now seven years have passed.

Nonetheless, I'd like to speak about
hope...

Hope that Russia can become a country
of laws and freedom.

I am far from an ideal person,
but I am a person with ideals.

And like anyone,
it is difficult for me to live in prison,

and I don't want to die here.

But if I have to, I will not hesitate.

The things I believe in
are worth dying for.

When he was in jail, he suddenly gained,
through his stamina, through his calm,

through his resolution
that moral authority

and respect of the people--

I wouldn't say he has legitimacy
as a political figure,

but I think the perception of him

has made sort of 180-degree turn.

It's not nice to say, but prison
changed him for the better.

He developed a certain degree
of compassion and humanity.

"Following the footsteps of many
prisoners, known and unknown,

I must say thank you to the prison.

It gave me time to form a new outlook
on many aspects of life.

As a co-owner of Yukos, I had to make
enormous efforts to protect this property.

I had to close my eyes
and put up with many things,

all for the sake of my personal wealth,
preserving and increasing it.

I did not control this wealth alone -
it controlled me as well.

I'm becoming a common person to whom
what matters is being, not having.

This is probably the only right choice
possible, the choice of freedom.

Prison is a place of anti-culture,
of anti-civilization.

Here, good is bad, lies are truth.

Here, good people feel deeply unhappy

because they can't do a thing
inside this hideous system.

The most important thing
is self-discipline.

Either you develop, or you deteriorate."

If you break, then there's nothing
for us to talk about.

Just lie down and be a footstool
before the throne.

There was a period when Putin,

because of the constitution,
had to step down as president

and become prime minister,

and his colleague, Dmitry Medvedev,
became president.

And there was a lot of talk at that time
that perhaps Medvedev might be a rival...

power base to Putin's.

It turned out to be completely incorrect

because at the end of Medvedev's term
as president,

he simply stepped down
and Putin came back into power.

Until 2008, I think Russia was
on the right track,

and Putin was okay.

Then Putin decided
to become more authoritarian.

He also decided that the country
could not live without him.

That's what power does to you.

You think you are the country,

and the country thinks without Putin,
there is no Russia.

Russia without Putin!

More than a hundred thousand protesters
flooded Moscow's Bolotnaya Square

to protest Putin's return
to the presidency.

The protesters, at least,
could imagine Russia without Putin.

Fascists!

Fight! Fight and don't disperse!
Russia will be free!

If those people had decided to march
on the Kremlin,

Putin wouldn't have had a chance.

At that moment,
that crowd was not ready to do that.

I felt that I was in prison forever.

I have to admit,
my friends thought so too.

The only way we could potentially
get him out of jail

is not through judicial system in Russia
but through some sort of negotiations

involving Western leaders
putting pressure on Putin.

How can we make it so Khodorkovsky
being in prison is worse for Putin?

So it reaches the boiling point?

To turn him from a domestic issue
into an international one.

The Winter Olympic Games in Sochi...

The host nation of Russia

is continuing a well-timed release
of high-profile prisoners.

Pussy Riot band member,
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova,

has been freed as part
of President Putin's amnesty.

Putin really wanted to see
Western leadership coming to Sochi.

And that pardon was his gesture

in anticipation of gesture back
from the Western leaders.

How did you find out
that you were going to be released?

On TV.

Will Khodorkovsky remain in prison?

Putin was speaking and he said,
"I'm going to sign an edict."

He's already spent more than ten years
in prison.

This is a serious punishment.

He's citing humanitarian reasons,
his mother is ill.

It was crucial for him that as a result,
I go abroad.

He had a certain sentimentality
about the situation

that I had with my mom.

That my mom had been told in August
of 2013 that she had a year left to live.

We did have that time together
and that's important.

I hadn't met him until he was released
from prison.

We had some vodka.

It was-- it was really unreal.

I ask you to regard me as a symbol
that the efforts of civil society

can bring about the release
of even those people

that nobody imagined
could ever be released.

Can you forgive all of those people
who took away ten years of your life?

It would probably be a sin
against the truth to say that...

...that I don't have any feelings
about it at all.

But I've worked very seriously on myself.

One has to look forward.

He was really thinking
what his next public step

in that fight should be.

And then he said that I'm ready
to make the public move.

And he wanted to go to Kiev.

In Kiev hundreds of thousands
of demonstrators

who demanded the government resign

for rejecting closer ties with the EU
in favor of better relations with Russia.

Demonstrators pulled back
under a hail of bullets

fired by government forces.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

I was shown and told
what the authorities did here.

They did it with the consent
of the Russian authorities.

I wanted to cry.

This is horrifying.

Thank you!
Thank you!

Fight and you will overcome. Godspeed.

Thank you.

In 2014, Khodorkovsky moved to London
and founded Open Russia,

an umbrella group
that funds anti-Putin efforts

and invests in long range visions
for democracy in Russia.

The money for Open Russia
comes from Khodorkovsky.

Somehow, even while serving hard time
in Siberia,

he or his friends managed
to protect some of his fortune.

I've got several hundred million dollars,
around 400 million.

I got another 100 million or so that
was recently released in Ireland.

So I've got enough money.

While in Moscow, I spent a bit of time
with Open Russia.

On the ground, their efforts
were less than effective.

Volunteers didn't have strong enough glue
to paste up their posters.

And Open Russia teleconferences in which
Khodorkovsky beamed himself into Moscow

only attracted the interest
of a few dozen supporters.

Khodorkovsky is not a forgotten figure.

But you can't touch him.

So he becomes more and more,
a TV image.

Okay, not TV, he is not shown on TV.
Computer generated image, okay?

And it's not good, of course,
for a politician.

-Virtual Khodorkovsky?
-Virtual-- virtual Khodorkovsky, exactly.

Being outside of Russia, he really
cannot influence the situation here.

He wants to be Jesus Christ
but, you know, he has a past.

Over time, complicated stories
become more simple.

Shades of grey separate
into pools of black and white.

That simplicity can serve
a political purpose.

In 1998, there were many suspects
in the brutal killing of Mayor Petukhov.

From Chechen gangsters
to the mayor's wife.

Today, in Nefteyugansk,
there is only one.

Who killed him?

According to one of the versions,
Khodorkovsky,

by the order of Khodorkovsky.

-Are there any other versions?
-I haven't heard any.

Such a person...
and they shot him.

Unbelievable.

And who shot him?

A true thief!

He was shot.

By the order of Khodorkovsky.

We know about it.

Khodorkovsky shot him himself?

You know... He ordered it.

Because...

That day I watched a report...

Murder as a Present.
Coming up next.

Why did Petukhov cross the oil giant?

He was shot and killed 15 years ago.

On the same day, in Moscow

the head of Yukos,
Mikhail Khodorkovsky,

celebrated his 35th birthday.

After I came to Great Britain,

they charged me with organizing
Petukhov's murder.

They figured that they would use
the last card they had.

That is, if I do return,
I would certainly immediately,

in the airport, be arrested.

And then life imprisonment, guaranteed,
no question.

Khodorkovsky's story marks
the beginning of a journey

which ultimately will result in violence.

And this is where we are today,

where violence is the only tool
at your disposal

for resolving social contradictions
or political conflicts.

I'd like to issue a warning:

The job of a traitor is one
of the most dangerous in the world.

Those who choose it rarely survive
until senior age.

A second piece of advice,
a more general one:

Don't choose England
as your next country of residence.

Maybe it's the climate,

but there have been
too many strange incidents

with grave outcomes there
in recent years.

People hang themselves, get poisoned,

have helicopter crashes and fall out
of windows simply on an industrial scale.

In England, over the past 15 years,

there have been a growing number
of mysterious deaths related to Russia.

Khodorkovsky's lawyer was killed
in a helicopter crash.

The anti-Putin Russian spy,
Alexander Litvinenko,

was poisoned to death six months
after he delivered an affidavit

that Russian secret services had paid

for the murder of the mayor
of Nefteyugansk.

Boris Berezovsky was found dead,

his neck suspended
by his own cashmere scarf.

But the coroner was unable to conclude

whether the hanging was a suicide
or murder.

Berezovsky became consumed
by this obsession

that he was going to bring down Putin
from London.

I would be very sad if Khodorkovsky went
the same way that Boris Berezovsky went.

I mean, your life may be at risk
in London.

Did you have a conversation
with your wife

about continuing to speak out?

I have talks like that with my wife
all the time.

To say that she is happy
with what I'm doing,

that's something I can't say.

We've been together for 30 years,
she respects what I do

and takes on the consequences
of my activity

together with me.

Can you hear me?

I have invited you here tonight,
my friends,

to tell you about the projects,

some long-term, some short-term,

but in short,
this is what we have been doing.

The current speaker of the Russian Duma,

and one of the top Kremlin
political aides, said publicly

"There's no Russia
without Putin." End of quote.

Probably the most insulting thing
I've ever heard said about my country.

At the end of the day all of our...

Vladimir Kara-Murza is a former journalist
and anti-Putin political warrior.

He was close to John McCain

who asked him to be among those
who carried his coffin.

Kara-Murza was poisoned twice,

while on assignment for Khodorkovsky
in Russia.

He played a key role
in passing the Magnitsky Act

which sanctioned certain
Russian individuals

for human rights abuses.

Kara-Murza now works with Khodorkovsky
to provide research and offer advice

to those considering sanctions
on members of Putin's inner circle.

It would have been great for us,

if those who want to introduce
the sanctions

had introduced them all at once,
and as soon as possible.

This would have untied our hands
to protect our national interests

by the means
that we consider the most efficient.

Detectives came into the Open Russia
office on Tuesday morning.

Money, credit cards were seized together
with computers.

The Prosecutor General's office gave
the command

to shut down our organization's
website,

and all the websites that are
mentioned on our website,

including my personal website,
which I have as a Russian citizen.

And sends a letter to Twitter that says,

if Twitter doesn't shut down
our organization's account,

they will shut down Twitter in Russia.

Open Russia has been recognized
as an "undesirable organization"

and according to the Prosecutor General,
it has no place in the online world.

When I see my arrows hitting their target

I understand that we're doing
our work fairly well

and we need to keep
on doing even more.

We do have a new project
of Open Russia, called Dossier.

It takes the investigative journalism
done in Russia or outside of Russia

and builds on that.

A key focus is the circle
of new oligarchs surrounding Putin.

One of them is Yevgeny Prigozhin,
nicknamed Putin's chef.

Following a recipe of coverts ops,

the chef cooks up missions for Putin
all over the world.

Special counsel Robert Mueller
accused Prigozhin

of launching cyber-attacks
during the 2016 presidential election.

Others accused him
of running off the books

military operations
from Ukraine to Africa.

When Khodorkovsky funded a group
of journalists to look into the matter,

they were murdered,

reportedly by people working
for the chef.

We are dealing
with officials' involvement

in the murder of journalists.

Back in Russia, state-controlled TV
turned the story upside down,

blaming Khodorkovsky for not doing more
to protect the journalists.

Let's reiterate that the person
who gave the assignment

should have shown some responsibility.

That's what we think.
Khodorkovsky, oh well.

Open Russia also helped
to expose a plot

to kill a Russian double agent
in Salisbury, England.

The attack deployed
a military chemical weapon

which badly poisoned two people
and killed an innocent bystander.

Two members of the assassination team

were spotted
by British surveillance cameras

and traced back through
their drivers licenses to the GRU,

Russian Military Intelligence.

With a perfume bottle full of novichok,
a deadly nerve agent,

they traveled to Salisbury
on the day of the attack

and then fled quickly back to Russia.

President Putin announced,
"We know these people,

and if I were them,
I'd come to the journalists

and tell them about myself."

I assure you that there is nothing special
or criminal here.

We will see shortly.

Are they civilians?

-What?
-Are they civilians?

Civilians, of course.

They're officers and if there's an order
from the Commander in Chief,

you have to comply.

What were you doing there?

There's a famous...
Famous cathedral there...

...the Salisbury Cathedral.

It's all funny, but on the other hand,
this isn't funny at all.

It's all insanity: first, the person
who gave the order,

then the insanity of Putin,
who approved the order,

and then put those people on-air

thinking it would improve the situation.

It's famous for its 123-meter spire.

It's famous for its clock.

That interview was sort of
a double message saying nothing is true,

and, of course, we are lying,
and two fingers up to the West.

But we are still doing it,
and it's okay to lie.

It's negation of facts, a negation
of truth, a negation of reality.

How should I talk to her if she's dumb?
She's got no brains!

Calm down!

Who gave her the right to throw water
at me? Crazy woman!

What kind of campaign is Sobchak running?

Have you meet her?
And what do you think of her?

We know each other quite well.

She was the first journalist
who interviewed me

after I was released from jail.

I fully support her because she talks
about democratic values.

The mass media are under Putin's control

but Putin does not regard Sobchak
as dangerous

so he allows her to use
the mass media that he controls.

How's the campaign going?

There is no campaign.

I understand.

Ms. Sobchak just invited me
to... to take part in her campaign.

Russia will be free!

She's doing things which make her
very few friends in the Kremlin.

On the other hand,
we should understand that all we see

all this so-called campaign
is a Kremlin game.

Everybody understands that there can only
be one winner in these elections.

We're not talking about
actually winning the elections.

Sobchak is going to force yet another

few million people in Russia
to start thinking

about that path along which the country
needs to be developing,

that there is an alternative to Putin.
And I fully support her in this.

After years in prison, Khodorkovsky
had learned how to play the long game.

RUSSIA WITHOUT PUTIN!

During the run of election theater,

he wasn't trying to back a winner
in the here and now.

He was offering support to a number
of political actors

who could amplify
democratic principles over time.

It's not such big money.

If we're talking about the activity
in Russia,

we're talking about hundreds of thousands,
maybe low millions of dollars.

I've got enough money to support that.

Khodorkovsky wanted to speak by proxy

to a younger generation who'd be ready
for Russia after Putin.

They don't watch so much TV,
they surf the web,

a domain the state has either
been unwilling or unable to control.

One web warrior, Alexey Navalny,
is supported by Khodorkovsky.

Navalny is banned from TV
or running for office

but he can get more than
20 million views on his YouTube channel.

Bribes, yachts, my election campaign HQs,
oligarchs, prostitutes,

and even Russia's interference
in the American election.

Did that make you intrigued?
Alright.

Why do you think that Putin finds you
so dangerous or threatening?

I think Putin is scared; he realizes that
there won't be a calm, normal election

with 70 percent of the vote for him,
if I participate.

Now I get arrested
at every protest I go to.

We can say
that it can't be called election,

and we call people to boycott it
and take an active position

so we're not calling it a boycott,
but a voter strike.

Strike!

Nemtsov! Nemtsov! Nemtsov!

During election season, there was a march
in honor of Boris Nemtsov,

an opposition politician who had been
murdered by mysterious gunmen

in front of the Kremlin,

just a few days before
he was to release evidence

of Russia's involvement in violence
in Ukraine.

Boris Nemtsov was killed, as you know,
because he called Putin "fucked up."

And somebody adopted a decision that
the punishment for such a thing is death.

KILLED FOR FREEDOM

Preparations and government rules
for the march

made it more protest theater
than protest.

Only certain signs were allowed,

and the tiny contingent
from Open Russia was not permitted

to bring along its posters.

Wait, it doesn't say "Open Russia"
or anything...

This is an emblem of an organization

considered undesirable
in the Russian Federation.

Considered by whom?

Still, all the politicians showed up
in the bitter cold.

The most important thing for the country's
democratic development

is polyphony. Political polyphony.

I supported Ksenia Sobchak,
as well as Alexey Navalny.

Although they sometimes had arguments
between themselves.

Let's try to sit at a negotiation table.
Let's try to join forces.

Because the main problem,
shown by this election as well,

is the divisions within the opposition.

You were a part of this scam.

You are participating in this,
I don't know why,

for money, for a position...

Ksenia Sobchak's family history
haunted her campaign.

Her father was the mayor of St. Petersburg
who first hired Putin.

Many believe Ksenia is a secret agent
of the Kremlin,

maybe even Putin's goddaughter.

In Russia, where visions
of the future are blocked

by an unchanging present under Putin,
conversations turn quickly to the past.

Putin looks back to days of empire
and wants to make Russia great again.

Russian liberals are nostalgic
for the democratic freedoms of the '90s.

But it's hard for them to argue
in favor of a time

when a handful of men
controlled the economy,

and so many lived in fear of hunger,
violence and economic chaos.

With such a past, wouldn't most people
settle for a present under Vladimir Putin?

In the precious land of birches

To the tender whisper of rain

I embroidered the beloved name
of the leader with pink beads

I embroidered Volodya's name
not hiding my dearest dream

Listen, my dear motherland,
my song is about Putin

Putin, Putin - we all want to marry Putin!

Tell us when will we finally
get a chance to marry...

Putin!

Yes... Vladimir Vladimirovich....

Alexey Navalny is not allowed
at the election.

My question is why?

Are those in power afraid
of the honest competition?

Is this a democracy or not?

Let's ask ourselves: what is democracy?

It's a subject of serious
and deep discussion.

But I can assure you that the power
has never been afraid of anyone

and isn't afraid of anyone.

Our take on the pseudo-election
on March 18 is simple: action.

Any active stand. But not on your sofa.

I'm used to practicing what I preach.

I can't really walk onto the territory
of a Russian Embassy,

because that can result
in some unnecessary scandal.

So we found a place where the election
takes place outside the embassy.

I ruined my ballot,

saying there was no choice.

#SICKANDTIRED OF PUTIN

In Russia's election theater,
everyone knows how the story will end.

Some actors play along
and others improvise off the script.

But for now, outside of the big cities,

audiences seem happy enough
with the fairy tale promoted by Putin.

STRONG PRESIDENT
STRONG RUSSIA!

No one else can replace him.
Putin, only Putin.

We want stability.

We don't want revolutions.

Definitely!
And only for Putin!

He managed to drag such a country
out of such a dump!

Darya, you're my soulmate
Darya, you're so beautiful

I took a shot of vodka and started dancing

In far off Krasnokamensk,

where Khodorkovsky spent
so many years in prison,

election theater has the folksy flair
of a high school musical.

Everyone roots for a happy ending
in a story scripted

by the self-appointed man of the moment,

who claims to have saved them
from the villains of the past.

The entire country will vote for Putin.
It will definitely be him.

Because... after...

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin
screwed up so much.

Horror.

So much to put back in order.

And Gorbachev started it.

Thank you!

You are our common team.

And I am a member of your team.

And everybody who voted today
is our big national team.

It is very important
to preserve this unity, my dear friends.

It is very important to win over those who
might have voted for other candidates.

After Putin's next term, can you imagine
that he will step down

or do you think
he will just keep going forever?

Who knows?

Russia! Russia!

Russia!

Putin is now 18 years in power.

He has this group of friends around him
who are now fabulously rich

and, of course,
they don't want to see him go.

Their whole wealth comes only from him.

It's very hard to get out of this.

What do you think
is Putin's worst nightmare?

He's walking the halls
of the Kremlin Palace.

The telephones
are turned off.

Nobody picks them up.

And in the reception office
there is a secretary,

but the secretary's telephone
is also turned off.

And he knows that any second
they're going to come.

I think that is his most terrifying

and in fact, his most real nightmare.

It's a gangster model of capitalism.

For Putin there is a horrible feeling

that at any moment the system
might fall apart.

Putin today, in the eyes
of the people around him,

as Bulgakov once said
in the famous Master and Margarita,

"He is not only mortal,
he is potentially mortal at any moment."

I wondered how Khodorkovsky could think
that Putin was weak or fearful.

After all, in the struggle
between the two men,

Khodorkovsky had lost.

But while in prison, Khodorkovsky learned
that you can sometimes win

when you are willing to lose everything.

The darker the night,
the brighter the stars.

What I noticed myself,
as a result of my years in prison,

I now have a different sense of time.

Nowadays, I end up misunderstood

when I say something will happen "soon."

People start to say, "Khodorkovsky
said it would happen this year."

No, soon means in five years, maybe ten.
That's what soon is.

I live in the future.

I want to go back and change things
in Russia.