Jo-Ann Mort writes:

When I met Mikhail Khodorkovsky at his offices on March 28, he was wearing his signature jeans and leather jacket. He was busy preparing for a trip to the United States. He’ll be in Washington the first week of April for meetings at the White House, the State Department, and with members of Congress.

I wondered what his message would be for Washington’s decision-makers.

“I have two messages. First, we need to really help the Ukrainians, and we need to be brave. Because if we can’t be brave, Putin will decide to take the next step, which will be invading Poland or the Baltic countries.

“Second, we must see two different types of Russians. It’s a big mistake to see all Russians as if they are supporting Putin.”

Without prompting, he immediately moved on to discuss the controversial remarks that President Biden delivered a few days earlier in Warsaw, Poland, stating that Putin “cannot remain in power.”

Khodorkovsky leaned in and emphatically told me: “I think that Biden was right in his last speech about Putin, and I was very upset that the White House bureaucrats said it was a mistake. Putin is an enemy of the U.S. as well. If he stays in power, there is no peace. You can try to be an ostrich, with your head in the sand. It is not the task of the U.S. government to remove Putin, but … until Putin leaves, we will never have a normal life. That is the opinion of a large part of Russian society.

“We must understand correctly what Biden meant. It’s not that he said what the American government should do. This was his remark to the Russian audience. It is up to the Russian people to remove Putin from that position.” Chuckling, he continued: “Putin understood this exactly as the White House understood it. So everyone understood Biden correctly.”

For Putin now, Khodorkovsky insists, even though it is not “real” that Russia is at war with either the U.S. or NATO, “it is real in his head.” That’s why “without removing Putin from power, the war will never stop.” [Continue reading…]