Putin the ‘good Tsar’ pledges to release Khodorkovsky

The surprise news came after Mr Putin had already spent four hours at a press conference discussing other topics.

Mr Putin said the former top executive of the Yukos oil company Mikhail Kodorkovsky (pictured) had asked for a pardon and could soon be free:

“Just recently he wrote such a paper and addressed an appeal for pardon to me. He has already spent more than 10 years behind bars. It’s a tough punishment. He’s citing humanitarian reasons, his mother is ill.

“I think that taking into account all these circumstances, it is possible to make the relevant decision.

“A decree to pardon him will be signed in the nearest time.”

Mr Khodorkovsky was due to be released in August 2014, and his lawyer was quick to deny that any such request for a pardon had been made. His mother Marina, who turns 80 next year, told reporters “I want to believe he will pardon him.. I want to believe Putin is not totally lost.”

Speaking to Channel 4 News John Lough, associate fellow at the Chatham House Russian and Eurasian Programme, said it was not clear if Mr Khorkorkovsky would have to admit his guilt in order for any pardon to go through: “I find it hard to believe that he’d be let out without having to give something on his part.”

‘Easy win’

However, the news of his possible release triggered a rise in the level of the Russian stock market. Investors have been increasingly worried about political freedoms and Russia’s ability to reform its economy.

An economist from a Moscow-based bank told Reuters: “It is quite likely that [his release] will give a short-term boost to investors’ perception of Russia, particularly US investor perception.

“It was always an easy win for Putin to let him out, because he is not popular and he does not have significant resources, but his being in prison does generate bad PR.”

Mr Putin’s announcement comes just a day after the Russian parliament passed an amnesty law that is expected to lead to the freeing of the two jailed members of the Pussy Riot punk band and the dropping of legal proceedings against Greenpeace activists arrested while protesting against Russian oil drilling in the Arctic.

Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Director John Dalhuisen dismissed the move, saying “this amnesty law is no subsitute for an effective independent justice system. Indeed, it is further proof of the politicisation of justice in Russia.”

Mr Putin, who said that the Pussy Riot protest had been “degrading to the dignity of women”, denied that he had anything to do with the amnesty decision.

Supporters of one of the women, Maria Alyokhina (on the left in the photo above), tweeted that she was hoping to be released on Friday.

The ‘good Tsar’

So what is Russia’s game?

According to John Lough, Mr Putin was, in his press conference, playing the role of the: “good Tsar, intervening to help the people: above the fray, showing he is an all-powerful decision maker.”

Many analysts have seen recent developments as a pragmatic move to assuage western criticism of Russia’s human rights record ahead of the Sochi Winter Olympics, which are a pet project for President Putin.

As Mr Lough explains, they are “not consistent with the recent squeeze on civil society. The authorities don’t want Kiev-style protests. The recent ‘liquidation’ of the RIA Novosti news agency shows the system retreating into a space where it wants to show that Russia is not part of the West but has distinct values – the way it reports news, both internally and externally, is part of that process.”

In Mr Lough’s view: “we are looking at a country that is isolating itself – and the timing is interesting, coming on the eve of the Winter Olympics.”