In prison, with pen and notebook
Former Yukos lawyer Vasily Aleksanyan sits in court
I felt responsible for my friends and colleagues who were arrested with me and who were suffering in captivity. Vasily Aleksanyan, our former Yukos lawyer, was diagnosed with AIDS in prison and the authorities denied him life-saving drugs unless he agreed to testify against me. Vasily refused to perjure himself and I again went on dry hunger strike to demand he be transferred to hospital. The demand was met after ten days, but it was too late – they let him out just in time for him to die in freedom. Despite the efforts of his family and friends, Vasily Aleksanyan fell victim to the vindictiveness of the system. Just like Sergei Magnitsky, the Hermitage Capital tax adviser who perished in police custody, my friend was the victim of a ruthless state apparatus.
After an international outcry and the intervention of Western politicians including Angela Merkel and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, I was released in December 2013 and put on a plane to the West. I was able to meet my young granddaughter for the first time and to spend time with my parents. It was an emotional moment. My mother had fallen ill while I was in jail and she died soon after my release.
It is clear that Putin wanted to release me, not least because keeping me in jail was making him look bad in the eyes of the world, but because he also wanted to brush up his image ahead of the Sochi Winter Olympics in February 2014.
How did I feel when I was released? Joy to see my family was the predominant emotion. And it was nice to eat proper food again. As for things that surprised me, I’d say the power of social media was the biggest shock. I read a lot when I was inside, so I had a theoretical understanding of everything that was happening, even of iPhones; but the whole phenomenon of social media in practice was a culture shock. Nothing prepared me for the extent of the influence it has had on humankind. Technology had made communication so fast and so efficient.
I kept a diary while I was in prison, but I don’t go back and read it, and I have neither the time nor the desire to continue writing diaries now. I don’t have bad dreams and I don’t have flashbacks to my time in jail – luckily, I’m calm about it all. Of course, I’ve read the stories about Putin’s FSB assassins coming to the West to murder people that their boss doesn’t like. I’ve never had the sense that I’m being followed, but I understand perfectly well that if Putin gives the order to have me removed, I will be. What else can I say? I suppose that since everyone knows I am one of his most prominent personal enemies, having me killed would be a very obvious and public gesture on his part. I don’t know if that would stop him; maybe it wouldn’t – he has been pretty brazen about these things. But let’s hope that some rules of the game remain in play.
I have made an effort to use my experiences for positive ends. I redoubled my charitable activities and expanded my philanthropic organisation, Open Russia, which promotes civic values and the education of young people. Because Vladimir Putin views these values as a threat, the authorities harassed and threatened Open Russia with increasing vehemence. In the Russian presidential elections of 2018, and in all elections since, Open Russia supporters have played a big part in organising democratic opposition to the current regime.
Reunited with my parents, Marina and Boris, and my son Pavel in December 2013
A woman shows her support for me during a rally in Moscow, 2007
Through a combination of vote rigging and the repression of independent political activity, including the banning of genuine opposition candidates, Putin has continued to win his Potemkin-style elections. There is anger within Russia and, increasingly, abroad too, at the contempt with which he treats the democratic process. In November 2021, the US House of Representatives bi-partisan Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe – known as the Helsinki Commission – introduced a Congressional Resolution to end US recognition of Putin as the president of Russia, stating that any attempt by him to remain in office after the end of his current term in 2024 would be unconstitutional and illegitimate. In 2020, Putin rewrote the Russian constitution in order to abolish the legal ban on him serving yet another term as president, submitting the change to a plebiscite of voters that the Congressional Committee described as ‘the most manipulated vote in the country’s modern history’. ‘Any attempt by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to remain in office beyond the end of his current and final term on May 7, 2024,’ concluded the Commission, ‘shall warrant nonrecognition on the part of the United States.’ It struck a nerve. Putin’s spokesman immediately condemned the resolution as ‘aggressive meddling’ in Russia’s affairs and warned that if Congress were to endorse the Commission’s wording, it would cause ‘a rupture in relations between Russia and the United States’.
PART THREE
EAST AND WEST
CHAPTER 13
ENEMY AT THE GATES
When I came to live in London after my release from Vladimir Putin’s prison camps, I knew I would not be returning to my homeland anytime soon. It made me sad, but I have always been a person who tries to make the best of his situation and minimise futile regrets. I already spoke a little English, but now I decided I must properly master the language of my new host country – something I am still working on. Like all students, I regarded television as an important tool. I watched the BBC news, dramas, thrillers, comedies and anything that could help my spoken English. One programme that caught my attention was the weekly quiz show Have I Got News for You. Some of the jokes between the panellists were hard for me to understand, but they were discussing the events of that week’s news, which gave me the key to what was going on. Having arrived from a country in which criticism of the authorities leads to unfortunate consequences (a similar Russian TV show was banned for mocking Putin), I was glad to see the freedom with which Have I Got News for You poked fun at the people in power. But what really struck me were the programme’s opening titles, in which cartoon figures acted out recent news stories.
About halfway through the titles, they showed an evil-looking Russian man in a fur hat and military greatcoat grinning wildly as he closed down a pipeline carrying gas and oil to the West, followed by a sequence in which Western Europe is plunged into darkness. It was so far removed from the self-image that Russians have of themselves that I jumped out of my chair.