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Boris Berezovsky: Iâ€™ve made people see Vladimir Putinâ€™s dark side

14 March 2010 04:43 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Boris Berezovsky is wearing black, but looks can be deceptive. Britainâ€™s richest political refugee may be living in exile in London, and top of the Kremlinâ€™s hit list, but he certainly isn’t in mourning today, APA reports quoting timesonline.co.uk web-page.

In fact, he is jubilant and offers visitors a large glass of brandy to celebrate his libel victory this week against RTR, a state-owned Russian television channel that had accused him of involvement in the murder of his friend, Alexander Litvinenko.

â€œI received text messages and calls from Russia congratulating me on the victory. Some of the people had not been in touch for years,â€ he told The Times at his office in Mayfair. â€œEven the Russian journalists who came to interview me started by offering their congratulations.â€

But the award of Â£150,000 â€” which RTR is contesting â€” is of little consequence to Mr Berezovsky, whose fortune is estimated at Â£450 million.

No, the man once regarded as the most powerful oligarch in Russia during the Yeltsin era is relishing the latest blow against the Kremlin and his arch rival, the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The two men have been locked in a decade-long power struggle that shows no signs of abating. At stake, says Mr Berezovsky, is nothing less than the fate of Russia itself. â€œWhen I came here a majority of people, about 95 per cent, thought Putin was a good guy who was cleaning the oligarchs out of Russia and making the country really democratic,â€ Mr Berezovsky said.

â€œI realised the mood had changed when I had to give a speech at the Cambridge Union recently. As I told the audience what Putin was really like, they looked bored. I suddenly realised that they had accepted my vision. I am not the only one who helped open the eyes of the people but I did help to explain how dangerous is Putinâ€™s Russia.â€ That danger became clear to many after Mr Litvinenkoâ€™s assassination in November, 2006. The former KGB officer, who had fled to London with his family, died after being poisoned with a radioactive isotope, polonium-210.

British security services concluded that the murder had been carried out on the orders of the Russian authorities. Relations between the countries remain overshadowed by the affair. Afterwards, police said that they had prevented a second assassination attempt, this time against Mr Berezovsky.

The threat from Moscow means that Mr Berezovskyâ€™s movements are severely limited. He can no longer visit France or Italy, fearing Moscow would issue an extradition warrant.

He spends his time in London and Israel. His yacht, which used to be berthed on the French Riviera every summer, now cruises the Western Isles of Scotland, which Mr Berezovsky insists is far more relaxing.

He says he is worried about what a change of government in Britain might mean. After the US President, Barack Obama, famously pressed the â€œreset buttonâ€ in relations with the Kremlin, British officials believe the next prime minister here might do the same.

Mr Berezovsky is not pleased at the prospect. He mourns the passing of leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill and believes that the West should stick by its democratic values. â€œI have no doubt that Russia will return to democracy,â€ he declared. When that happens he hopes to be on the first flight home.