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Mikhail Khodorkovsky

@khodorkovsky_en

Nov 11

For decades, the West has made the same catastrophic mistake with Russia: searching for a "good tsar."

This approach has failed every single time — and it will keep failing until we understand: Putin's position is cursed.

The system needs to change 🧵[1/14]

I've watched this pattern repeat since my first trip to America in 1989. Yeltsin becomes unpopular—the West wants to find a "good tsar." Putin turns authoritarian—the same response. This is the most dramatic error possible when dealing with Russia.

[2/14]

I once posed a scenario to high-level American politicians and strategists: 'You are Russia's president, you control territory from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad, you need to redistribute 50-60% of taxes through the federal center just to hold the country together — how will you convince people to accept this massive concentration of power?

[3/14]

Read 14 tweets

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

@khodorkovsky_en

Nov 3

EU excels at denying bank accounts to Russians with humanitarian visas but fails to control exports of dual-use goods that fuel Putin's killing machine.

🧵How the discriminatory interpretation of the 19th sanctions package hands the Kremlin a new mobilization tool — [1/10]

On November 1, 2025, thousands of Russian citizens who fled dictatorship and Putin's criminal war, legally residing in the EU, discovered their bank accounts had been unexpectedly closed. These are people who chose Europe over complicity in Putin's war crimes.

[2/10]

One of the major banks justified its decision by citing compliance with the 19th sanctions package imposed on Russia's economy on October 24. The company claims the new sanctions policy prohibits servicing any bank accounts of Russian and Belarusian citizens without valid temporary or permanent EU residence permits.

[3/10]

Read 10 tweets

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

@khodorkovsky_en

Oct 31

Putin's biggest fear has been exposed.

As a Russian dissident who spent 10 years in his prisons, I can tell you it's not sanctions or missiles. It's the rising legitimacy of the Russian opposition.

🧵 And that legitimacy just got a major boost.

[1/12]

In an unprecedented decision, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) recently voted to establish a "Russian Democratic Forces Platform". For the first time since the Ukraine invasion, Russia will be represented at PACE — not by Putin, but by a relatively united democratic opposition.

[2/12]

This is a diplomatic breakthrough for those of us in the opposition and it has Putin terrified. His entire regime rests on his personal power — without him, it has zero legitimacy in the eyes of Russians and the world. The opposition's growing international stature directly threatens that.

[3/12]

Read 13 tweets

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

@khodorkovsky_en

Oct 30

In Putin's army, soldiers are being tortured, executed, and buried by their own commanders.

It's a practice so widespread that it's got a name - 'obnuleniye', or 'zeroing out'

(🧵Read on)

'Zeroing out' means killing one's own soldiers, sometimes by gunfire, sometimes through torture, and sometimes by sending them into suicidal wave assaults without weapons

[2/17]

The practice began with summary executions as a punishment for disobedience. By now, it's taken root and become systematic. Soldiers are being murdered as a means of discipline, extortion, and control

[3/17]

Read 17 tweets

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

@khodorkovsky_en

Oct 29

Trump's new sanctions won't work, but Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv might. Putin isn't a politician, he's a mob boss who only understands force.

🧵Here's why the recent talk of long-range weapons has rattled him, and what needs to happen next: [1/12]

It is a positive step that President Trump seems to have abandoned the 'good cop' role in dealing with Putin. But no amount of sanctions are going to be damaging enough to get results

[2/12]

The important thing to remember with Putin is that he isn't a politician, but a mob boss. He is used to living in a world where only force is important, and rule of law doesn't exist

[3/12]

Read 12 tweets

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

@khodorkovsky_en

Oct 27

In 2019, Putin pompously opened a gas pipeline to China.

6 years later, having lost its EU market, Gazprom finds itself drowning in a staggering $72.7b of debt

(🧵Read on — 1/11)

This month, Forbes Russia released its list of the 10 Russian companies with the largest amount of debt.

And Gazprom was at the very top of that list

[2/11]

According to Forbes, as of June 30 of this year, Gazprom’s net financial debt was 5.79 trillion roubles, or $72.7 billion

[3/11]

Read 11 tweets

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