Original subtitles

First of all, he's a weak man.

Secondly,

he's an envious and greedy man.

Thirdly, he's a man who always lies.

I've known Putin since 1992.

We were neighbours at our dachas,

here's my house, here's his.

Putin was a former KGB officer.

He was very low level though,

there were thousands like him thrown out by the system,

the Soviet Union, on the street.

Putin didn't have ambitions of any kind...

neither career ambitions... nor political ambitions,

they were totally out of the question.

It was an accident that Putin moved on to the Mayor's office.

Yeltsin was looking, or someone within his entourage that was close to him...

who could be offered up

and if things went well,

would be elected.

Putin was a modest man,

he never spoke unless he was asked to,

but when it was his turn, he spoke.

When something had to be said,

he was very articulate,

which was important.

I was building a machine that would elect a President,

regardless of who that might be.

I developed the "script" of the campaign

and watched it unfold accordingly.

The script had all the elements in it for victory:

A candidate who was young,

energetic, sporty...

compared to the outgoing, old and sick Yeltsin.

It was already all in the script.

Putin, from my perspective,

fitted the part very well.

I personally tried to convince Putin to become President.

I remember where we were in the Kremlin.

It was building 14, his office.

Putin responded with a definite "No", he didn't want it.

It was a completely unreal situation for him.

The election was due to take place in the summer...

and I knew it was impossible to make Putin,

who was not known by a single person in Russia,

a candidate within six months.

My idea was that Yeltsin should leave,

then Putin could become "acting President",

so become President without being elected.

And that's what happened.

I swear to execute the office of President of the Russian Federation.

Together we stood up for peace...

we didn't let them remake history...

we protected our great Soviet homeland.

Back then, nobody thought in billions,

but Putin understood he would only be there temporarily.

He would be replaced, so should receive a compensation,

a large one.

One that would allow him to live for the rest of his life,

calmly, happily and wealthy.

Wealthy, that was the key word.

Importantly, I should say,

Putin was very poor, really poor.

I know his wife, his family and his children.

I remember buying his children their first computers,

they didn't have any.

For him, at that point,

compensation meant

maybe ten, twenty or thirty million dollars.

That would have been adequate compensation for what he did.

That wasn't the case during Yeltsin's term.

Now a man becomes a minister,

and believes right away that he's made money.

Putin starts to pull in people, mainly old KGB people.

By 2002, the lines had already been crossed.

Probably, if I'd had a better understanding

of the essence of this regime

as a criminal organisation,

I would have been able to oppose it more effectively.

Look at the next slide.

You see that corruption in Russia

costs $30 billion a year.

Thank you very much, Mr Khordorkovsky.

Let me say a few things.

Firstly, thank you for your slides...

Some companies, like Yukos, have huge surpluses of oil.

How did they get those reserves?

That should be part of our debate on corruption.

At its core,

it was a misunderstanding between two people,

Khodorkovsky didn't understand the effect of what he was saying,

because he didn't know Putin.

He would try to tell him something,

but it would be received

as a harsh insult.

Khodorkovsky said some really stupid things.

It's hard to imagine now,

but I couldn't

understand having known…

Gorbachev, Yeltsin,

Primakov and so on.

I knew them all.

I knew them, some were good, some were bad,

some were awful...

but they were all political leaders

for whom political decisions

and the country came first.

I could not imagine a situation in which the President

of the country was thinking only of his personal wealth.

Mikhail talked to me beforehand.

I asked, "What if not only Sechin,

but Putin

is also getting a cut from the Northern Oil proceeds?"

This was the night before, at home and Mikhail said,

"I can't believe that the President

would receive bribes of $100 to $200 million."

He was wrong.

After that meeting,

it was the first time

I saw Putin so off balance.

I gestured that I would join him after everyone else left.

He grabbed my sleeve and said, "Come on, come on."

He said, "This Khodorkovsky,

he's a horrible man.

I checked him out, I know he didn't pay any money.

He seized this oil company for free,

I think it's wrong, we must take everything from him."

I wasn't in charge of the campaign,

although many think I was.

Yanukovych was not my choice, he was awful.

I did what I could, but as we all know,

it ended very badly.

Putin thought it was all done by the Americans.

Putin was 100% convinced,

I was about 70%.

In reality it was an open battle, and Moscow lost.

We took it very seriously,

and started creating

various youth and adult organisations

to have a footing in the masses.

The activists

who were attacking Kasparov

were obviously not being managed by me

and they were obviously not ordered directly by Putin.

Long live a free and proud Russia!

Nobody listened to us.

Listen now.

You failed to contain Russia.