Former head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky learned about his pardon from the news on TV. He spoke about this in his first television interview after his pardon on the Dozhd TV channel in the Sobchak Live program on the night of December 22. The interview was recorded in Khodorkovsky's room at the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, where he is currently staying. Fragments of the interview have been published on the channel's website, and its full version will be shown in its entirety only after its press conference, which will take place on Sunday at the Berlin Wall Museum at approximately 13.00 (16.00 Moscow time)

According to the businessman, when he heard about the president’s speech from the news on TV, “he realized that Vladimir Vladimirovich was talking about an already accomplished fact.”

“I have been watching our president for quite a long time, and for me it was obvious,” Khodorkovsky said in an interview with the Dozhd TV channel. He said that immediately after that he went to collect papers, because he assumed that he would be released from the colony within 24 hours .

When asked why he went to Berlin immediately after his release, Khodorkovsky did not give a direct answer. “I’ll say right away that I don’t have an explanation for all the facts. Still, the amount of information I have is limited. Now I’m gradually starting to understand something, but I don’t know everything,” he noted.

On December 19, after the end of a large annual press conference, Vladimir Putin unexpectedly announced the imminent pardon of Mikhail Khodorkovsky at his own request. The President noted that Khodorkovsky spent more than ten years in prison, and that this is a “serious punishment.” He refers to circumstances of a humanitarian nature - his mother is sick. I believe that, bearing in mind all these circumstances, it is possible to accept the appropriate decision, and a decree on his pardon will be signed in the near future,” Putin said.

It later turned out that Khodorkovsky turned to Putin with a request for a pardon on November 12. On December 20, the president signed a corresponding decree, and a few hours later the ex-owner of YUKOS was released. And a few hours later he found himself in Berlin, where he flew on a private Cessna plane.

Khodorkovsky learned about his pardon on TV