Latynina: Khodorkovsky a Worthy Russian President
Since May 8, 2000, when Vladimir Putin took office as president of the Russian Federation, Russia has acquired $1.5 trillion in oil and natural gas revenues. As a country suffering from severely neglected infrastructure and in desperate need of development and modernization, Russia has been in an ideal position to benefit from such staggering windfall profits.
At a talk earlier this month at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York City, award-winning Russian journalist Yulia Latynina spoke about how all of this money is actually being spent, and what condition Russia now finds itself in as a result. Latynina noted that although not a single highway or expressway has been built in Russia over the past two decades, several presidential residencies have been renovating and state-owned energy executives have bought mansions across Europe, costing billions of rubles.
During the questions that followed, Latynina was asked who would make a worthy Russian president. She responsed: "[Mikhail] Khodorkovsky," but added: "He'll sit in prison as long as Putin is in power."
Latynina played down the audience's fears that her safety was at stake for criticizing the Russian government. She linked fears that free speech was being suppressed to the legacy left over from Soviet times. However, she was skeptical of the effectiveness of initiatives by the Russian opposition, including a petition calling for Putin to resign that has so far gathered more than 18,000 signatures.