Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center

In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Yevgenia Chirikova, the young leader of the Ecodefense movement, responded to Mikhail Khodorkovsky's letter of support for her campaign to protect Moscow's Khimki forest.

Chirikova said: "I totally agree with Mikhail Khodorkovsky about the fact that ‘we are far from a result and results are not guaranteed'." She added: "Obviously, this person sees this [situation] from prison."

She added that it had indeed been "very hard for opponents" of the planned highway project, most of whom came from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's own United Russia party, to reach agreement.

Chirikova went on to say that while she had only followed Khodorkovsky's trial through newspapers, she is prepared not only to fight for the environment but for political prisoners as well. She said: "We are fighting for our civil rights in the ecological realm. However, in doing that we are waging a fight against this lawless police force, who we continue to come up against, and this right we will defend." She added: "We keep on pulling up more and more problems - like corruption, for example."

Chirikova said that her group, along with environmentalists from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Greenpeace, and other organizations have gathered with environmental experts to find the best possible variant for the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway. But the Khimki defender said those problems - Khimki, corruption, Khodorkovsky's imprisonment - are connected. The central fight, she insisted, "is against injustice."

She said she sees no problem with people chanting both !In defense of Khimki forest" and "Free political prisoners" at the next meeting of her environmental group. Chirikova said: "We recognize that our police have turned into mobsters...And it's very possible that people who are deemed ‘political prisoners' have become so not because of media speculation but because of that injustice itself."