Khodorkovsky : "Government Makes Itself a Christmas Present"

December 20, Russia’s most effective oil company has been destroyed following the selling of Yuganskneftegaz, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s press center reported citing the former YUKOS CEO and its major shareholder.


According to Khodorkovsky, Yuganskneftegaz was sold in the best traditions of the 1990s. The government made itself a wonderful Christmas present – it destroyed the most effective oil company of Russia,” Khodorkovsky said through his lawyers.

Former YUKOS CEO also expressed his conviction that the society will not be indifferent to the fate of the company’s workers. “I am sure that, sitting at the Christmas or New Year’s table with your families, all of you – oil workers, journalists, analysts, or any caring people, at least for one moment, will not be thinking about faceless shares, but will remember a woman lawyer alienated from her family and small children, imprisoned simply to be put out of the way and for others to get a lesson," Khodorkovsky said. (Deputy Head of YUKOS-Moscow legal department Svetlana Bakhmina was arrested last week by sanctions of Basmanny Court of Moscow).

Khodorkovsky also remembered about his former colleagues, “sitting in cells or being forced to leaved their land and families,” “the people, left with no paychecks before the New Year.” According to YUKOS ex-head, “right now this is much more important, significant and sad than the “auction show.”

(Kommersant, 12.20.2004)

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Meshansky Court, 12.20.2004