Don’t negotiate with Putin because he’s a ‘bandit’, warns ex-oligarch

European leaders ought to keep away from the error of negotiating an finish to the Ukraine battle with Vladimir Putin as a result of “he isn’t a statesman however a bandit.”

That is the stark warning of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled businessman who was as soon as thought-about the wealthiest man in Russia and is right now a number one critic of the nation’s president.

For the reason that Kremlin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a number of leaders, notably President Emmanuel Macron of France, have been engaged in telephone calls with Putin in a bid to vary his thoughts – to no avail.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and European Council President Charles Michel have all held unsuccessful calls with their Russian counterpart.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer even travelled to Moscow to fulfill with Putin in individual.

This diplomatic marketing campaign has been harshly criticised by Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy, in addition to by Poland and the Baltic states, who take into account the calls a type of appeasement with an alleged battle legal.

In an interview with Euronews, Mikhail Khodorkovsky struck an analogous notice on the matter.

“The leaders of the main European nations nonetheless imagine they will negotiate one thing with Putin with out demonstrating their pressure and that they will discuss to him from what he perceives to be a weak place. And this can be a dramatic mistake as a result of he isn’t a statesman like they’re however a bandit,” Khodorkovsky mentioned.

“And what does a bandit do in this type of state of affairs when he considers himself robust and when he is being pushed to make a step in direction of them? He tries to complete his sufferer off.”

COVID quarantine ‘modified Putin’s mindset’

The businessman then famous that Putin’s self-imposed isolation in the course of the coronavirus pandemic altered his notion of Ukraine and led him to order the invasion, ignoring the profound modifications the nation has gone via because the 2014 Maidan revolution.

“I don’t imagine that Putin has any strategic plans. I don’t take into consideration him as a strategist,” Khodorkovsky mentioned.

“Russia is a really large nation, and we now have lots of people suggesting totally different situations. And a type of situations corresponds to Putin’s view of what ought to be put into follow,” he added.

“What we observe in Ukraine now could be associated to the COVID quarantine that Putin imposed on himself in his bunker along with a few of his most aggressive buddies.”

For the previous two years, Putin has lived in a rigorously managed virus-free bubble, with entry restricted to his closest confidents and advisors.

The excessively lengthy desk the president makes use of to welcome most international leaders has grow to be the right image of his adamant need to take care of strict social distance and stop a COVID-19 an infection. US intelligence officers have beforehand speculated in regards to the influence of this excessive seclusion on the president’s mindset.

“This [invasion] is a mix of pragmatism – a need to make himself extra standard with the citizens – and a few paranoid worry of what’s taking place within the neighbouring nation [Ukraine],” the previous oligarch mentioned.

“He’s afraid of these democratic modifications and of the independence Ukraine has gained.”

Warfare will finish ‘on battlefield’

As soon as an power tycoon with shut hyperlinks to the Kremlin, Khodorkovsky was imprisoned over fees associated to fraud and cash laundering, a judicial course of that was broadly condemned as politically motivated. After his launch in 2013, he went into exile in Switzerland and launched the civil initiative Open Russia.

Requested about how the battle will finish, the businessman quoted the prediction made by Josep Borrell, the EU’s international coverage chief.

“I used to be stunned by Mr. Borrell. He’s a European bureaucrat, and I didn’t anticipate any powerful phrases from him, however he mentioned some very right phrases: this situation gained’t be solved round a negotiating desk however on the battlefield,” Khodorkovsky mentioned.

“After all, we can have negotiations on the finish of this battle, however to begin with this battle can be solved on the battlefield and there’s no various to that.”