Reputation

Writing in Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal, Aleksandr Ryklin expresses the belief that in the savage verdicts of the Yukos trial, Vladimir Putin has delivered an insult to the Russian people:

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev will remain behind bars for just as long as Vladimir Putin remains in power, and they will be released the day after the fall of the regime. But this sentence, I will repeat, has a highly exemplary relation (though is it appropriate in this case to use a juridical term?) to the fate of the Yukos directors. A most direct relation to you and me. Because the majority of us will spend all those years or months not in prison, but in freedom. Consequently, we will be able to influence what happens in the country. Yes, the decision of the Meshchansky law court means that THEY [i.e. the authorities] have spat in all our faces, that THEY do not consider us human beings. All right then, let us wipe ourselves off and set about restoring our own reputation.