Sir, – Vladimir Putin is no angel, but then angels are rather rare among leaders of powerful nations. Politicians in the West and Western media in general have by now developed an almost Cold War attitude to Russia and to Putin in particular. The Irish Times is no exception, in this regard. Your Front page and your article inside (World News, December 23rd) both refer to Mikhail Khodorkovsky as having been a political prisoner.
Under the chaotic reign of Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s a group of individuals, including Khodorkovsky, emerged as oligarchs in the course of grabbing control of huge state assets, including oil companies, for knock down prices. .Overnight they became unbelievably wealthy. They were not noted for being too scrupulous in the nefarious methods they used in acquiring such vast assets. What is rarely if ever mentioned by anyone in the West is that the European Court of Human Rights has concluded, on more than one occasion, in relation to Khodorkovsky and others of his ilk, that they could not be designated as political prisoners and stated that they were in prison for the crimes they had committed.
That Putin was responsible for putting an end to the chaos that had existed made an enemy of him in the eyes of those who had profited mightily and so they were glad to describe themselves as political prisoners. In fact Khodorkovsky and others like him had never shown any interest in politics. Whatever one might say about Putin it in undeniable that the economic situation in Russia is far healthier than it was under the previous regime. In his favour he was largely responsible bringing about the current promising negotiations between Iran and the West and preventing the threatened American missile attacks on Syria. – Yours, etc,
ALBERT COLLINS,
Bishopscourt Road, Cork.