I recently read the latest book about YUKOS and Khodorkovsky. The author – a certain Vladimir Perekrest from «Izvestiya» – not only named it «What Khodorkovsky is sitting for» [“to sit” is the Russian equivalent of the American phrase “to do time” in jail–Trans.] (note that the title is not in the form of a question, because for him, Perekrest, it is obvious that the former head of YUKOS is sitting for good reason and justly), he also peppered the entire book with this phrase, every time attempting to fasten his arguments to it.

About the author. At the end of the book is written that this – is a «famous journalist, deputy editor of a department at «Izvestiya», that he has «broad erudition» and an «excellent style» and that this book – is the first in his glorious labor biography.

I read the book. From the very first page of the text the author tries to convince the reader that the trial of Khodorkovsky showed that «the power is stronger , the law is stronger». Here’s a quote: «Having demonstratively punished the most mighty of the oligarchs, the president showed the others who’s boss in the country». Here Perekrest himself kissed goodbye his book and any value it might have had: he absolutely justly asserts that in the criminal case against Khodorkovsky the president decided everything (then he was V. Putin), and not the law. The conclusion from the author’s passage is simple and clear: in Russia there is no independent court, because it is precisely to a court that are given the powers to punish and to be merciful, and not to the president, no matter who he may be and what his personal attitude towards a figurant in a criminal case may be.