Demise of Yukos May Undermine Democracy in Russia — Khodorkovsky

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former CEO and main shareholder of Yukos oil company, has warned of the impact the ruin of the company may have on democracy in Russia and the country’s economy.

“The fate of Yukos is not the point at issue today. It will hardly be possible to save the company. What counts most is what lessons the country and society will learn from the Yukos affair,” Khodorkovsky said in an article entitled Property and Freedom, published in the Vedomosti newspaper on Tuesday.

“Repressive methods in politics, a forced redistribution of property in the interests of some group, and the task of building a modern economy are incompatible, and this mechanism will not restrict itself only to Khodorkovsky, Yukos and the oligarchs. Many other people, including today’s ’architects and builders’, will fall victim to it,” he said.

In the Yukos affair, the state was “taken hostage by the interests of specific private individuals holding the powers of civil servants,” Khodorkovsky said.

(Mosnews, 12.28.2004)