Key quotes from Khodorkovsky’s news conference

Here are some of the key quotes by Russia’s former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky at his first news conference Sunday after being released from a Russian prison:

ON FUTURE PLANS

– “I wouldn’t like to be perceived as a symbol of a situation of there being no more political prisoners in Russia.”

– “Please, see me rather as a symbol for the fact that the efforts of civil society actually can lead to the freeing of such people that one didn’t expect at all, where the likelihood seemed so low.”

– “We must simply work together on there being in the future no more political prisoners in Russia or other countries of the world. At least I will do everything possible in this direction that depends on me.”

– “It sounds perhaps rather strange… in our fast moving pace of the world that I, just 36 hours ago, only for the first time again won my freedom. In this time I couldn’t make plans for the future.”

– “I also don’t intend at all to be engaged in political activities… I will occupy myself in the future with social matters.”

– “A fight for power is not for me.”

– “No plans to return to the (Russian) economy.”

– “My financial situation doesn’t now require that I have to work only to still earn money.”

ON PRISON/HIS RELEASE

– “I must apologise for not giving all the details today. I still have some friends, companions suffering in prison, my friend (Platon) Lebedev, many people who are still in a situation like mine.”

– “Politicians of Western countries must remember, in ties with President Putin, that I am not the last political prisoner in Russia.”

ON SOCHI WINTER OLYMPICS

– A “festival of sport should not be spoilt” but nor should it become a “festival of Vladimir Putin”.

ON PUTIN

– “Our laws authorise President Putin to remain in power for 10 years. He was recently asked if he wasn’t thinking about wanting to be president for life and he said ‘no’. And I hope for this that he will not change his mind on this subject.”

– “Mr Putin has had the possibility to free me for 10 years. And I think that after a period of reflection this long, that can’t be a mistake. To the contrary, it’s even an example of the way in which he could behave in the future, at least I hope so.”

– “I personally understand very well, and already when I was working in business, I had always understood that very hard games are played. Concerning me, this severity was shown in a particularly tough way.”

– But he added “my family had never been touched”. “When I saw that things weren’t going too badly for the family, that they behaved in a humane way with my family, I also decided to behave pragmatically.”

– “Pragmatism… does not foresee such unpragmatic things like revenge, hatred and so on.”

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