Mikhail Khodorkovsky 'exhausted but happy to be free' after Putin's pardon

Former oligarch's release and flight to Berlin proceeds like military operation amid rumours and misinformation

Like his arrest in 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky's release was akin to a military operation. Then, masked special forces stormed his private jet as it stood refuelling on the tarmac at a Siberian airport. On Friday, he walked free, but his release and subsequent flight to Germany remained shrouded in secrecy.

The former oligarch arrived in Berlin on Friday afternoon, after his surprise pardon by Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. He touched down in Sch enefeld airport on a chartered flight, where he was met by former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who had helped organise his travel. The German embassy in Moscow had facilitated the trip, reportedly fast-tracking his visa application.

Genscher told Der Spiegel that Khodorkovsky was "exhausted, but very happy to finally be free".

Khodorkovsky issued a statement via Facebook saying that he had asked the Russian president to pardon him for personal reasons and was glad of the positive decision. He emphasised, however, that "the issue of admission of guilt was not raised". For many years Khodorkovsky has refused to ask for a pardon, as doing so requires a de facto admission of guilt.

Russia's former richest man personally thanked Genscher for his support and spoke of how much he was looking forward to "the minute when I will be able to hug my close ones and personally shake hands with all my friends and associates".

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists in Moscow on Friday evening the president had received two documents from Khodorkovsky last month: a request for a pardon, and a "long" handwritten letter "with his explanation". Peskov declined to reveal the contents of the letter.

"Of course any request for pardon is a significant decision that requires a lot of thinking," said Peskov, adding that Putin had decided to act favourably "on humanitarian grounds". "He committed a very serious crime, but he has served a very serious sentence for it."

Peskov denied any kind of deal had been struck to ensure the former oligarch remain in exile: "I don't know why he flew to Germany but it's his personal decision. A Russian citizen cannot be forbidden from returning to Russia, of course."

The recent chatter in Moscow had been of a new, third case against Khodorkovsky - named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International - designed to keep him behind bars when the sentence he had been serving ran out next August. Instead, following Thursday's shock announcement that he planned to release the oligarch, Putin signed a decree which pardoned Khodorkovskyon Friday morning. That sparked a day of rumours and misinformation, during which there were hours of abject confusion about Khodorkovsky's whereabouts.

Journalists gathered outside the prison in Segezha, northern Russia, where the former tycoon had been serving his time, but did not see him leave. Later, there were rumours that he had boarded a helicopter at the local airfield and was headed to St Petersburg. Russia's prison service put out a statement saying that Khodorkovsky had flown to Germany, where his mother was receiving medical treatment.

The confusion lifted only briefly, however, as it soon became apparent that Khodorkovsky's mother is in fact currently at her home just outside Moscow. Genscher later said that in the rush to issue his release, Khodorkovsky hadn't realised that his mother had already finished treatment in Berlin's Charit Campus Virchow clinic, and had been discharged on 11 December. Marina Khodorkovsky told Reuters she was ready to fly anywhere to meet her son. : "I want to just hug him. I don't even know yet what I am going to say to him." She is due to fly to Berlin to be with her husband today.

The private plane Khodorkovsky flew in to Berlin is owned by the German businessman Ulrich Bettermann. Bettermann, Genscher and Khodorkovsky met at an event at Berlin's Hotel Adlon in 2003, where Khodorkovsky had spoken in highly critical terms about corruption and party finances in Russia.

Genscher's spokesperson, Nicola Maier, released a statement welcoming Putin's decision, describing it as "significant and very encouraging". It revealed that Genscher had met Putin in person twice to talk about Khodorkovsky, and that he had been aided in his efforts by chancellor Angela Merkel, the former German foreign minister and Berlin's ambassador in Moscow. Merkel's spokesperson said: "The chancellor welcomes Mikhail Khodorkovsky's release. Over the last few years she has repeatedly lobbied the Russian president for Mr Khodorkovsky's release."

In Moscow, opposition-linked political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin said there were only cynical motives for Putin's decision to free Khodorkovsky. "Putin has seen there is a real problem with his and Russia's image in the west, and the Olympic games are coming. This was a carefully planned decision timed to happen just before Christmas, so everybody could write about it, think how great it is, and then forget about it in the new year."

Oreshkin noted that Khodorkovsky's sentence was due to come to an end in nine months, and he is confident Russian officials had "given him no option" but to ask for a pardon. "Previously, Khodorkovsky has always refused to ask for a pardon, as it would suggest he recognises the legitimacy of the system and of the court cases against him. Whether they threatened him with a new case and a further seven or eight years in prison, or whether it was a statement about his mother's failing health, who knows."

On Friday evening, Khodorkovsky called the editorial offices of Russian magazine the New Times, which has published a series of his sketches from prison. He said: "After 10 years, I now have an unbelievable feeling of freedom. I am grateful to you and to everyone who supported me all this time ... I love everyone, I am happy. The most important thing now is freedom, freedom, freedom."

Yandex’s Islands goes into beta, now providing feature-rich search results in 3 countries

Last month, Russian Internet giant Yandex unveiled Islands, a feature that brings interactive snippets of content to its search engine, and now it has been released in beta across three countries.

The idea behind Islands is to provide a richer set of search results to give users more options and details relating to websites that show up. Islands initially launched in Turkey only, but it is available to users in Russia and Ukraine too.

The feature currently covers search, images, video and the main Yandex page, but that will expand to other services in time, the company says.

Essentially website managers can make their search results more compelling for users. For example, by providing options for a site that users can take advantage before they actually click through - like logging into a Russian Airlines account from the search results page.

Yandex previously explained that there are different types of Islands, ranging from search snippets, which are basic descriptions that appear below each search result. Site links can also be added to allow users to navigate to specific pages. Finally, there are interactive snippets which present more advanced options, such as logging into accounts from the search results page.

The company says that Islands is available across all devices - computers, tablets and smartphones - though it will take a while to make its way to the company's full set of core markets. Since it has a beta tag, we can expect more features and tweaks to come too.

Islands is another impressive piece of engineering from Yandex, which previously launched Shell - a Facebook Home-like launcher app for Android devices - and partnered with Opera to promote the Android ecosystem in Eastern Europe.

The company is the dominant search provider in many Eastern European markets, but it gained worldwide attention last year when it released Wonder, a voice-controlled search app for Facebook. Despite the positive reviews it was little wonder that Facebook cut the app's access to its API, leading to its withdrawal from the App Store.

This week has been notable at Yandex for tragic reasons. Company co-founder and CTO Ilya Segalovich passed away on Thursday after losing his battle with cancer.

Headline image via Thinkstock

Russia faces vodka boycott in backlash against anti-gay law

LGBT activists target brands including Stolichnaya and Russian Standard in response to ban on 'gay propaganda'

There's nothing more Russian than vodka, so when gay and lesbian activists decided to protest against the country's persecution of homosexuals it made sense to target its most famous drink.

The US sex writer Dan Savage, famous for his online campaign against the homophobic senator Rick Santorum, called for a vodka boycott to draw attention to new laws allowing police officers to arrest tourists and foreign nationals they suspect of being homosexual or "pro-gay".

"To show our solidarity with Russian queers and their allies and to help to draw international attention to the persecution of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, trans people and straight allies in Vladimir Putin's increasingly fascistic Russia: dump Russian vodka," Savage wrote on his blog, He singled out the brands Stolichnaya and Russian Standard, coining the hashtag #DumpStoli for the campaign, which has been backed by Queer Nation and the Russian-American group Rusa LGBT.

Savage said attacks on LGBT people in Russia were escalating, and criticised the state for banning gay pride marches in Moscow and St Petersburg.

Six bars in Chicago announced they would stop selling Russian products, and a seventh bar said it had withdrawn Stolichnaya, according to Windy City Times, a Chicago LGBT newspaper.

The campaign seemed to have an instant success when the manufacturers of Stolichnaya criticised Russia's record on lesbian and gay rights.

In an open letter published this week, Val Mendeleev, the head of the SPI group, condemned the Russian government for "limiting the rights of the LGBT community" and noted that the Russian state has no ownership or control of the brand, which is produced in Latvia.

On its Facebook page, the company posted a multicoloured banner reading: "Stolichnaya Premium Vodka stands strong and proud with the global LGBT community against the actions and beliefs of the Russian government."

Stolichnaya, with its distinctive red-and-white label, was produced by the state in Soviet times and was reportedly the favourite vodka of Boris Yeltsin. After an attempt by the Russian state to regain the brand name in the 2000s, SPI Group, which is based in Luxembourg, has produced Stolichnaya in Latvia using Russian ingredients. Meanwhile, the state-owned Soyuzplodimport produces a nearly identical vodka in Russia.

Russia's leading gay rights activist said the boycott was misguided.

"They mixed everything up. Stolichnaya isn't Russian," said the lawyer Nikolai Alekseev, head of the Moscow Pride organising committee.

"This is all good for attracting attention to the situation in Russia, like any other action, such as boycott of the Olympics, but it will not drastically change anything," he added.

Unlike Stolichnaya, Russian Standard vodka is produced in Russia and is owned by the Russian oligarch Roustam Tariko. A spokesman for the company declined to comment.

In June Russia's parliament unanimously passed a law banning the spreading of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors, prompting calls for other countries to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The law in effect makes it illegal to equate straight and gay relationships, and to distribute material on gay rights. It introduces fines for individuals and media groups found guilty of breaking the law, as well as special fines for foreigners. Four Dutch activists were charged in Murmansk this week under the law.

This is not Savage's first controversial LGBT campaign: in 2003, he held a contest to create a definition for "santorum" after Santorum made comments critical of gay marriage. The new word was defined as "the frothy mixture of lube and faecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex".

US will not seek death penalty for Edward Snowden, Holder tells Russia

Reports this week claimed Snowden had applied for asylum in Russia because he feared torture if he was returned to US

The US has told the Russian government that it will not seek the death penalty for Edward Snowden should he be extradited, in an attempt to prevent Moscow from granting asylum to the former National Security Agency contractor.

In a letter sent this week, US attorney general Eric Holder told his Russian counterpart that the charges faced by Snowden do not carry the death penalty. Holder added that the US "would not seek the death penalty even if Mr Snowden were charged with additional, death penalty-eligible crimes".

Holder said he had sent the letter, addressed to Alexander Vladimirovich, Russia's minister of justice, in response to reports that Snowden had applied for temporary asylum in Russia "on the grounds that if he were returned to the United States, he would be tortured and would face the death penalty".

"These claims are entirely without merit," Holder said. In addition to his assurance that Snowden would not face capital punishment, the attorney general wrote: "Torture is unlawful in the United States."

In the letter, released by the US Department of Justice on Friday, Holder added: "We believe that these assurances eliminate these asserted grounds for Mr Snowden's claim that he should be treated as a refugee or granted asylum, temporary or otherwise."

The US has been seeking Snowden's extradition to face felony charges for leaking details of NSA surveillance programmes. There were authoritative reports on Wednesday that authorities in Moscow had granted Snowden permission to stay in Russia temporarily, but when Snowden's lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, arrived to meet his client at Sheremetyevo airport, he said the papers were not yet ready.

Kucherena, who has close links to the Kremlin, said Snowden would stay in the airport's transit zone, where he has been in limbo since arriving from Hong Kong on 23 June, for the near future.

The letter from Holder, and the apparent glitch in Snowden's asylum application, suggest that Snowden's fate is far from secure.

But a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin insisted Russia has not budged from its refusal to extradite Snowden. Asked by a reporter on Friday whether the government's position had changed, Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that "Russia has never extradited anyone and never will." Putin has previously insisted Russia will not extradite Snowden to the US. There is no US-Russia extradition treaty.

Putin's statement still leaves the Russian authorities room for manoeuvre, however, as Snowden is not technically on Russian soil.

Peskov said that Putin is not involved in reviewing Snowden's application or involved in discussions about the whistleblower's future with the US, though he said the Russian security service, the FSB, had been in touch with the FBI.

Speaking on Wednesday, Snowden's lawyer said he was hoped to settle in Russia. "[Snowden] wants to find work in Russia, travel and somehow create a life for himself," Kucherena told the television station Rossiya 24. He said Snowden had already begun learning Russian.

There is support among some Russian politicians for Snowden to be allowed to stay in the country. The speaker of the Russian parliament, Sergei Naryshkin, has said Snowden should be granted asylum to protect him from the death penalty.

The letter from Holder was designed to allay those fears and negate the grounds for which Snowden as allegedly applied for asylum in Russia. The attorney general said that if Snowden returned to the US he would "promptly be brought before a civilian court" and would receive "all the protections that United States law provides".

"Any questioning of Mr Snowden could be conducted only with his consent: his participation would be entirely voluntary, and his legal counsel would be present should he wish it," Holder said.

He added that despite Snowden's passport being revoked he "remains a US citizen" and said the US would facilitate a direct return to the country.

Germany's president, who helped expose the workings of East Germany's Stasi secret police, waded into the row on Friday. President Joachim Gauck, whose role is largely symbolic, said whistleblowers such as Snowden deserved respect for defending freedom.

"The fear that our telephones or mails are recorded and stored by foreign intelligence services is a constraint on the feeling of freedom and then the danger grows that freedom itself is damaged," Gauck said.

Latvia: Russia's playground for business, politics – and crime

Mystery of missing tycoon shows how Russian influence is growing again in small Baltic nation

The Russian tycoon Leonid Rozhetskin was last seen alive in the pretty seaside town of Jurmala, on the Baltic coast of Latvia. That was five years ago. Detectives found ominous clues inside his villa, including blood on the floor, but no body.

Then last summer police discovered human remains 25 miles away in a forest. Inside a pocket was Rozhetskin's credit card. So far officials have been unable to say for sure that the corpse is that of the missing multi-millionaire.

The presumed murder is a vivid example of how Latvia - a small Baltic nation of 2 million people on the doorstep of Russia - has become a playground for Russian interests: business, political and, above all, criminal. Or often, as in the Rozhetskin case, all three. Like many rich Russians he had numerous enemies. The Guardian has even been told the name of the hitman who allegedly killed him.

Two decades after Latvia declared independence from the Soviet Union, joining the EU and Nato in 2004, Russian influence is growing again.

It is most visible in Jurmala, the picturesque resort of pine forests and wooden dachas from where Rozhetskin is thought to have disappeared. Every summer Russia's fashionable super-rich gather here for the New Wave pop festival. They meet, socialise and party. A table in the VIP lounge of the town's concert hall costs 25,000. It is joked that their combined wealth exceeds Latvia's budget.

The guests are a who's who of Vladimir Putin's Russia - oligarchs, Duma MPs, crooners and spies. Two years ago Roman Abramovich dropped by and went for a walk in the sand dunes. Other summer visitors include Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man, and Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman. Also there last year was Vladimir Pronichev, deputy director of Russia's powerful FSB spy agency, and the man responsible for guarding the country's borders.

According to Leonid Jakobson, an investigative journalist based in the capital, Riga, Jurmala also attracts another clientele: the Russian mafia.

Last year a Russian businessman, Nikolai Kirillov, was shot dead while returning from the beach with a 24-year-old female companion. There was a theory he was involved in smuggling. As is often the case, nobody was caught.

In 2010 Vyaschaslav Shestakov, a Russian alleged to be a gangster, moved to Jurmala. He was said to be an emissary of the mobster Aslan Usoyan, also known as Grandpa Hasan, who was gunned down last week while leaving his favourite Moscow restaurant. Last month the Latvian authorities banned Shestakov from the country, and from the rest of the EU.

"Jurmala isn't really a music festival. You don't need to go to Latvia to listen to Russian pop stars. You can do that in Russia," Jakobson said. "In reality Jurmala is an important moment. The Russian mafia and Russian government are together in one place. They discuss common problems, global problems and how to move money through the Baltics."

Some including Jakobson believe the Kremlin's agenda in Latvia is to slowly reverse the country's strategic direction from pro-west to pro-Moscow. This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and, arguably, Georgia have all recently returned to Russia's geo-political fold following unsuccessful revolutions.

Latvia has the biggest proportion of ethnic Russians of the three post-Soviet Baltic states, accounting for about 25% of Latvia's population. Some 37% speak Russian as a first language, the highest figure for any EU country. The charming capital Riga is effectively bilingual, with Russian and Latvian spoken on its art nouveau streets.

There is also growing evidence the country has become a haven for dubious Russian money.

In a report last week the European commission praised Latvia's post-2008 economic recovery. But it said the authorities had not done enough to stop Latvia's banking system being used for "complex economic, financial, money laundering, and tax evasion crimes".

In recent months wealthy Russians have abandoned Cyprus, which is seeking an EU bailout, and moved their company registrations to Latvia.

Half of all money now invested in Latvia - $10bn - comes from non-resident depositors. Most live in Russia and former Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The US state department has expressed concern that this reliance on outside money creates a "systemic money-laundering risk".

"Latvia seems to be the first point of call for money launderers to get their cash into the EU," said Tom Mayne, of the campaign group Global Witness. "Once you get money into the EU there are close relations between EU banks, and you can move it around easily. Latvia is one of the main hubs. It's a point of weakness."

Latvian financial regulators say they have introduced tough measures to clamp down on money-laundering and suspicious transactions. They say Latvia, with its large financial services industry, is not the only European country that does business with Russia. "The EU is still buying gas from Russia. We are part of the west," said Kristaps Zakulis, the head of Latvia's bank regulator, FKTK.

But many see evidence of Russian soft power at work. Jakobson's investigative website has made him plenty of enemies. Last year unknown assailants attacked him in the stairwell of his home, slashing his face with a knife.

He had also published emails that allegedly showed Russia's foreign intelligence agency, the SVR, had secretly financed the 2009 municipal election campaign of Nils U akovs, now Riga's mayor. U akovs does not dispute the authenticity of the emails but police interrogated the journalist for two days over their possible theft.

U akovs, a young and energetic former journalist, is ethnic Russian. He leads the Harmony Centre, a five-party coalition that predominantly enjoys support from Latvia's ethnic Russian voter base. Latvia's harsh post-2008 austerity programme may have delighted the IMF, but it has alienated many. The populist Harmony Centre could well play a role in a future national coalition government.

Ethnic Latvians view the party's rise with concern, seeing it as a proxy for Moscow's business and political interests. The party has fuelled suspicion by signing a co-operation agreement with Putin's United Russia party.

Moscow, meanwhile, has staged military exercises on Latvia's border, while the ultra-nationalist Duma MP Vladimir Zhirinovsky has called on Russia to annex the parts of eastern Latvia dominated by ethnic Russians.

EU diplomats in Riga confirm that Russian intelligence agencies in Latvia are highly active. "They have successfully penetrated Russian elites in this country," one said.

Boris Karpichkov, a Latvian former KGB agent now based in Britain, said Latvia's geographical position, bridging Russia and the west, made it an ideal entry point for Russian espionage, smuggling and laundering of criminal proceeds. He said: "Latvia is in the centre of the three Baltic states. Russia's security services use Latvia like a trampoline, to send their people to Europe and the US." Russian spies with Latvian passports can travel undetected across the EU, he said.

The Kremlin has also sought to bolster its influence via Latvia's Russian language press. An anonymous offshore company owns many newspaper titles; their real owner is suspected to be a pro-Kremlin businessman. All portray Putin favourably. Pro-Putin Russian state television is widely viewed; Russia has also distributed history textbooks to schools that portray Latvia's post-1944 Soviet occupation as "liberation".

Valeri Belokon, a Latvian banking tycoon, former owner of a Russian-language newspaper, and president of Blackpool FC, said Moscow was undoubtedly trying to return Latvia to its sphere of influence. "Unfortunately it's true. I'm afraid of all this Russian capital. Capital is influence. Latvia is an open country. And I'm not against tourism or business. But the danger for a small country is that we become dependent on Russia. We definitely have to defend ourselves."

Many of the apartments in Jurmala are Russian-owned. Buying property in Latvia entitles the owner to residency. This allows visa free travel across the EU. Even the Russian ambassador to Latvia lives here, in an imposing yellow and white mansion next to the sea.

Many ethnic Latvians despise the Jurmala festival. Local businesses, by contrast, welcome it.

From her home in the US, Rozhetskin's mother has accused Russian agents of murdering her son. The tycoon had fallen out with the Kremlin before his death, and was embroiled in business disputes with Russia's then communications minister and other well-connected oligarchs.

One tantalising version suggests Rozhetskin faked his own death, and is alive and well in the US living under a false name. Either way his house, next to Jurmala's cemetery, was eerily empty last week. There was no sign its owner will return any time soon.