As the first preliminary hearing of the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky is being held on Tuesday in Moscow, I have been fielding a number of calls from reporters seeking to understand the context and perspective of the defense.  For those interested, I thought I would briefly publish a few of my thoughts from these interviews here before getting back to our regularly scheduled programming of debate on Russia.

First, it is important to understand that although it may share many of the same features and political characteristics, the second trial of Khodorkovsky is already set to be markedly different from the first show trial.  For one, this is the first trial to occur under the watch of President Dmitry Medvedev, whose responsibility as guardian of the Russian constitution could be permanently damaged and stained depending on the handling of this trial.  Secondly, there is the fact that Khodorkovsky has been moved back to Moscow where the trial will take place, as he should have been a long time ago in accordance with Russian law.  This change of venue represents a very positive win for the defense, and potentially indicates an important change in posture of the state.