Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center

Igor Yurgens, a senior aide to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, said that the second Khodorkovsky trial was counterproductive to Russia.

Adrian Blomfield interviewed Yurgens for The Daily Telegraph. Discussing the Khodorkovsky trial, Yurgens said: "This is a case of selective jurisprudence and of disproportionate brutality that is counterproductive for the state itself."

Yurgens also stated that: "[In Russia] there is a struggle under way, although it is not very clear what is going on. In a society that was more transparent, which had more democratic mechanisms and a viable opposition, we would have a better idea of what is going on."