A Quote by Mikhail Khodorkovsky

By equating Putin and Russia, you are creating a situation that's the opposite of what you would like to have happen.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Quote Topics

Creating Happen Like Opposite Putin Russia Situation Would

Quote Author

Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Russian - Businessman
Born: June 26, 1963

People take the lazy way out, and do not regard Putin and the Kremlin as the real enemy. They create a long but erroneous chain in their heads. Putin is the leader of Russia. Putin does X, therefore Russia is doing X, and Russia is our enemy. And so, we introduce sanctions, for example, against Russia.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Vladimir Putin hates America, he wants to hurt us. Suddenly Vladimir Putin is a good guy, Russia is okay, no it's not. Russia is evil, Russia is our enemy.

Ralph Peters

Vladimir Putin bribed a soccer official with a Picasso painting so he would support Russia's bid to host the 2018 World Cup. Putin was like, 'It wasn't Picasso, just picture of what his face would look like if he said no.' (Nose over here, eye up here, ear in forehead.)

Jimmy Fallon

Vladimir Putin would like to have more influence in Ukraine. He would like to have Ukraine always knocked slightly off balance so that they don't know what he might do next. He would like to demonstrate that he has more power than the Ukrainians do. And so certainly by making a frozen conflict situation where Ukraine never really has a definitive sense of sovereignty over its own territory, that's in Putin's interest.

Kimberly Zisk Marten

Putin has big plans for Russia...Hats off to the Russians. I think I would just get along very well with Vladimir Putin.

Pope Francis

We have to remember that Putin was a member of the KGB. He has already demonstrated that kind of macho, dictatorial attitude. Russia has breached their pledge to uphold the Olympic charter. This is a great opportunity for the IOC to say we cannot, given the situation that exists currently, allow the Olympics to take place in Russia.

George Takei

Putin described Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. These - the Russian people view Ukraine as an extension of Russia. And so there is a sense that Putin really will do whatever it takes, even in the face of overwhelming, diplomatic, and economic pressure to defend what he sees as Russia's vital interest. And I think when we're trying to understand what's going on in Ukraine we have to keep that in mind. This isn't a simple case of Putin agitating for a fight.

Clarissa Ward

Tillerson, at ExxonMobil, brokered multibillion-dollar deals with Russia, meeting with Putin multiple times. In 2013, he received the Order of Friendship award from Putin himself. But Tillerson today said he'd support continuing sanctions against Russia for now. He also implied his intimate knowledge of Russia meant he understood its strategy, and could anticipate its moves, to America's benefit.

Margaret Warner

We've got oligarchs. There are certain people that benefit in the Russian sphere if you will. The oligarchs who basically feed Putin, they've got to be hurt without hurting the people. The people are hurting bad enough in Russia, and they're very skeptical of what's going on and all of the corruption goes on in Russia. Russia is not our ally. Russia is not our friend. And to treat Putin as an ally and a friend is wrong.

Joe Manchin

I tried to come up with a definition of this new paradigm in six articles entitled "Russia after Putin." I would consider Russia's integration into Europe the most important element of this strategy.

Garry Kasparov

We are a Russian group and we want to change the situation in Russia. We criticize our own government and it would be strange if we did that from abroad. We don't need performances in the West to put Putin's regime under pressure. The punishments against us have shown us that we succeeded.

Yekaterina Samutsevich

The mission is to demonstrate that Russia is not Putin, that we're ready for cooperation, and that there are a lot of people in Russia who want the U.S.-Russia relations to be improved and that we don't view the United States as our enemy.

Ksenia Sobchak

You know, Russia brings it on. People don't want to be Russia hawk. People would like - that's what the president always says: We would like to get along with Russia. But what Russia is doing makes it really hard.

Kurt Volker

Putin imagined it would be different. So, like many Russian leaders before him, he imagined that Ukraine was basically Russia, but they speak with a funny accent. Actually, it's not Russia; it has a different identity. It has a very different language. Russians don't automatically understand Ukrainian. And, in particular, the way Ukraine has developed over the last two decades is different from the way Russia has developed.

Anne Applebaum

Donald Trump didn't even understand, right, that [Vladimir] Putin was playing him. So, in Putin's mind, I have no doubt that Putin thinks that he's an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation, although Putin would never say that.