Every politician deep inside is authoritarian. If the person doesn't have ambition, that's not a politician. Society needs to put every ambitious, every effective politician into such a position that it helps - that this person helps improve society. That's why I'm always talking about need to change the system rather than should we go with Navalny or Gudkov or Yavlinsky or Khodorkovsky. We all have our ambitions. We're all ambitious people.
Mikhail KhodorkovskyBy equating Putin and Russia, you are creating a situation that's the opposite of what you would like to have happen.
Mikhail KhodorkovskyIf we talk about changes of power in Russia, that has occurred several times in the past century. After Stalin came Khrushchev, who implemented his legacy quite radically, one could say. But there was no blood, nonetheless. After Brezhnev came Gorbachev. I'm not talking about the ones who were in power for only a short period of time. Gorbachev, too, left a very radical legacy.
Mikhail KhodorkovskyIt's a very erroneous strategy to try to push the Russian opposition to unite. First of all, the opposition is addressing different parts of Russian society that have differing points of view. And besides, a united opposition is a nice big target that the authorities have a much easier time fighting. And besides, resisting an authoritarian regime with an authoritarian opposition merely means that, in the event of victory, you're just doing yet another round of the same old, same old.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky