When Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, criminal invasion of Ukraine, he shot himself in one foot. When he threatened to use nuclear weapons, he blew off the other. His regime has chosen a path of self-liquidation. The only question is how much damage it will do before its demise.
Ukraine, of course, is now the main target of Putin’s barbarism. I salute the bravery of the Ukrainian people and their leadership. Ukraine, an independent sovereign democracy, is not a part of Russia; but, as is the case for many Russians, Ukraine is a part of me. My grandfather, killed defending Moscow from fascist invaders in 1941, was from Zhytomyr in Ukraine. Today the invaders attacking his homeland are Russian. My grandmother was from Kharkiv. When I see the bombing of her city, it rips my heart in two – my motherland bombing the land of my grandmother.
Putin’s war of aggression is a crime against Ukraine and a crime against humanity. But it is also a crime against the Russian people. The regime starves Russians of information and feeds them lies. It tells them this is not a war but a “military operation”. It tells them we are fighting “Nazis and drug addicts”, even as its bombs drop on the site of Babyn Yar. While Putin’s forces bombard innocent Ukrainian civilians, we need to bombard Russians with the truth. When the news breaks through that Russian boys are being sent to their deaths in their thousands to murder our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, then the regime’s position becomes untenable. » | Mikhail Khodorkovsky * | Tuesday, March 3, 2022
* Mikhail Khodorkovsky is founder of the Open Russia movement, former Yukos CEO and Amnesty prisoner of conscience
