“Putin’s end will come sooner rather than later”

London The Rise Story of Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky is a story from the wild days after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Born in 1963 to a Russian-Jewish family, Khodorkovsky bought a bank in less than seven years.

A few years later, in exchange for unpaid loans from the Russian government, he took over a state oil company, which he renamed Yukos and made it the largest private oil company in the world. In 2003, at the peak of his career, he had a fortune of $16 billion, according to Forbes magazine, making him the richest Russian oligarch.

But in the same year began his descent. On February 19, 2003, he publicly demanded an end to corruption from Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting of the most powerful business leaders. Fearing that Khodorkovsky could become a political opponent, Putin had the oligarch persecuted.