Just 20 years have passed since Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Moscow, 1963) went from being the richest oligarch in Russia to becoming the most famous prisoner in the country. He served 10 years in prison in cells overlooking the ice and today he wears the same timid look that always made it difficult to believe that he was Vladimir Putin's most hated opponent.

The Russian leader himself ended up granting him a pardon at Christmas 2013.. Since then he has lived in exile in London, where he continues to get into some puddles. He explicitly supported the armed rebellion of mercenary leader Evgeny Prigozhin even though he had no sympathy for Wagner's boss.. “When Putin arrived, it seemed to me that we were heading towards a truly democratic path, but I was wrong,” he explains to EL MUNDO during a brief visit to Spain, a country whose transition model interests him.. He believes that “since 2014, Russia has been falling, step by step, to a practically formalized regime of dictatorship.”

Is the end of the regime near due to the war? Or did the war happen because the regime has no future? During his terms, Putin undertook warlike actions on four occasions to solve his government's problems.. Now you have started a war again because you have felt that your support within Russian society is falling. You called on Russians to support Evgeny Prigozhin's mutiny. Do you not trust a democratic transition? For a regime change apart from a general atmosphere in society, there has to be a collapse, a failure within the regime. Of course, there are going to be bad guys on one side and the other.. Prigozhin was one of those bad guys, but he weakened the regime significantly. A peaceful decline of the regime is possible, provided that the regime realizes that there are other options.. I will give an example so that I can be understood.. Around 200,000 or 300,000 people took to the streets of the capital of Belarus, Minsk, in 2020.. They were protesting against the falsification of the elections of the president of Belarus and had the support of Belarusian society. However, when they approached the prison where the political prisoners were held, the doors were closed and they stopped there even though they could have broken them and freed the inmates.. There the Belarusian revolution ended and a period of reaction began that has left all opponents emigrated or in prisons.. What happened in Belarus teaches us a lesson: if you are not willing to go to the end, do not take people out into the streets. Do you then believe that Putin will die with his boots on? Everything seems to indicate that this will be what will happen. If Putin had left power definitively in 2008, he would have remained in people's memories as a not-so-bad president.. When he returned to office in 2012, people took it worse. In the Spanish transition, which I know a little about, there were a series of guarantees [for the previous regime]. After 2022, I don't think anyone can guarantee anything to Putin. Because Putin's surrender is worth lifting sanctions and a future Russian government will be willing to hand Putin over [to international justice] under those conditions.. He knows it perfectly. That is why he will maintain power as long as he can. If Putin takes kyiv, if he takes over most of Ukraine and looks victorious…. What will he do next? That's what I try to explain to European politicians.. Imagine: you are president of Russia, you have occupied Ukraine, a place where two thirds of the population hate you and they have set up a guerrilla, partisans.. You have a destroyed territory, and you have to spend money on reconstruction, because otherwise there will be waves of refugees to Russia. It also has a million people who are already used to being paid for killing, because they have gone into combat to earn 10 times more than before and, of course, they want to continue with the 'banquet'.. At that time, it has been 10 years in which the country's economy is not growing, so the well-being of the people rather falls.. And on top of that, no one can take away the sanctions.. What are you going to do? Go for more. In my opinion it is obvious. And what exactly would it mean to go for more? People forget about the ultimatum that Putin gave at the end of 2021: retract NATO to the borders of the year 1997. That means: Baltic countries, Poland…. You may even decide to include East Germany. Putin's thinking is that Europe will ultimately hand over Ukraine. And then he's going to hand over the Baltics, and with that NATO breaks up, so he can do whatever he wants afterwards.. Putin [with Kiev already subdued] would try to recruit people in Ukraine for his army: the country would be collapsed, with nothing to do, there would be people willing to fight against Putin and also for Putin: that is the Donbas model. I estimate he could recruit a million people, enough to take the Baltics. How did Putin go from the almost bloodless annexation of Crimea and the covert, limited interference in Donbas of 2014 to the full-scale invasion of 2022? Without a doubt those Such erroneous decisions were made because their environment was reduced as a result of COVID. We know the names and surnames of the people who led to those erroneous decisions.. [Businessman] Yuri Kovalchuk, [pro-Russian oligarch] Victor Medvedchuk and [FSB intelligence service general Sergei] Beseda. We know Kovalchuk's ideology: imperialist and traditionalist. Medvedchuk did it more for money: he has invested more than 1 billion corrupting Ukraine, and it worked for him. And the other [Beseda] told Putin that the regions of Ukraine were going to welcome him with flowers. It seems that the regime defrauded itself. This is how authoritarian regimes usually end: they lose their link with reality. Between 2013 and 2014 there was only one big difference between both countries: Ukraine was more or less democratic and Russia was more or less authoritarian.. If Putin had been in a different state of mind he could have bought or leased Crimea.. We could have been like France and Belgium. The situation turned out to be completely different. Ukraine began to consolidate itself even more as a nation, in ten years Ukraine has made great progress and Putin finds himself with a state that is considered totally different from Russia. 2014 was Putin's mistake, and 2022 is its continuation. What attitude should Europe have towards Russia? There are two bad ideas. The first is to talk about Russia going to disintegrate, which is not realistic and if it were it would be dangerous.. And in any case it serves to scare people and rally them around Putin. The second bad idea is sanctions: Europe is a rule of law, so every limitation of rights must be described by law. Unfortunately, there have been almost two years of sanctions, and there are still no strict rules on how to get out of the sanctions.. It should be clear to anyone. What do you think would happen if Putin dies tomorrow? If a brick falls on Putin's head tomorrow, [Prime Minister] Mikhail Mishustin would be the successor.. Russian history suggests that it would not retain power for long: there were transition periods after Stalin and after Brezhnev. One of the main missions of the opposition, apart from stopping the war, is to influence that process. To overthrow a dictatorship, apart from a general atmosphere of society, there has to be a collapse within the regime itself: the Army is not willing to shoot against the people.

What can you do if you are trapped in a loop, in a mediocre and bland job, with no future and in which you do not get the recognition you deserve, but which you cannot give up no matter how hard you try? In addition to the personal story of one in three readers of this paragraph, that plot is the starting point of De Laatste Dag, The Last Day, a recent humor miniseries starring Elisabeth Lucie Baeten, an actress, writer, screenwriter and comedian. which has become the sensation of the moment in the flamenco world.

Every morning, upon waking up and leaving the house on the way to a fictional television, the character of Lucie (played but also created by her) repeats out loud: “Today is my last day.”. She wants to be promoted but her boss ignores her, her colleagues have their own misfortunes and the circumstances are not on their side.. She wants to resign, she knows she should resign, she is determined to resign, but she never succeeds, because something always happens.. A meeting that cannot be postponed, a pregnancy test with a false positive, a crush with the new guy in the office.

The plot doesn't have much mystery: misunderstandings, flirtations, easy jokes, unexpected twists that are completely expected.. But it has had some success in Flanders, managing to connect with the millions of people who are bored in their chair for eight hours five days a week and feel identified with that very Belgian mixture of pacelessness, routine, lightness, overreaction and improvisation. But above all, it has raised the profile of its protagonist and person in charge, whom some compare – with somewhat questionable criteria – with the North American Lena Dunham, the creator of the also successful Girls.

Elisabeth defines herself as an “irritating optimist” and is the author of books such as: Living in the Now. Guide to what to do, what not to do and what the hell is happening in these confusing times, quite a statement. He started out doing everything, but he found an immediate niche on Instagram with the express mockery of the week's protagonists.. No one wants to be a victim of their sharp and ironic darts, but at the same time no one wants to be completely left out, because they have become a way of determining who matters and who doesn't in current Belgian times.. “Even the prime minister follows me,” he boasted these days.

His recent videos do not last more than a minute and a half and the internet has loved them. In Gila style, she presents herself as Katrien van Politiek PR, Katrien from political public relations, and has telephone conversations with the enemy, which are the local leaders who get into trouble, get out of control drunk or make fools of themselves with delusional excuses. They are not biting, but they are accurate and close, and that is precisely why they work so well. They make people laugh without needing to destroy, but they are devastating from forced innocence.

Is he a celebrity? Well, he is earning it, but in reality, if he were, or something similar, it would only be in half of the country. The other half, the Walloon and French-speaking, have no idea who he is.. There are no references in their media, there is no follow-up on the street. The division in the country, for these things, is total or almost, and there are few stars capable of covering the entire national universe.. It is a double-edged blade: on the one hand they live better, without many stresses and too much cultural friction, but on the other hand, ignorance becomes dull and is very difficult to smooth out.

The mere prospect of a change of Government in Poland after two consecutive terms under the Law and Justice party (PiS) has caused sharp increases in the financial markets and the prospect of a reconciliation with Brussels that will translate into the unlocking of community funds once once restored to the rule of law, sowing optimism in a large part of Polish society. The rise to power of a pro-European and liberal tripartite led by former Prime Minister and former President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, is inevitable, but there are dark clouds on the horizon.

President Andrzej Duda, who traveled to the Vatican coinciding with the possible burial of the party that elevated him, will announce the results of the elections this Monday. With almost 80% of the vote, the PiS, as the exit polls indicated, will prevail at the polls, but will not reach a parliamentary majority. PiS's chances of staying in power are practically zero, but Duda will give itself the deadline established by law, 30 days, to say which candidate it will appoint to form a government.. And PiS, as the party with the most votes, has already claimed that right.

“In accordance with the rules of democracy, it is up to us to try to build a parliamentary majority, and that is what we will do,” declared the outgoing prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, the big loser of these elections.. If PiS fails to remain in government, and everything indicates that it will not be able to do so, Morawiecki will pay a double price: he will no longer be seen as the “heir” to Jaroslaw Kaczynski's party and as a successful candidate to succeed Duda.

“Morawiecki has done everything wrong. It was supposed to become PiS's ticket to the metropolitan middle class and improve relations with the EU. But he became the tribune of the people, appealing to the less well-off. A completely wrong strategy, the effects of which we are seeing,” says political scientist Rafa Chwedoruk.

According to the PIS chief of staff, Brudziski, the party would begin to talk about a coalition with the farmers' party (PSL), although he did not explain why, since they still have not joined forces, so the only card they will be able to play It is that of transfuguism.

Because in the PIS there is a feeling that the electoral results are good. “It is a true success after eight years, after Covid, after the war in Ukraine, after inflation, after the attacks we have suffered, that we have come this far. And all this is essential to form a government, because we will probably be the first to present our candidate,” says deputy Bartosz Kownacki.

Analysts believe that PiS's strategy will be to buy time. Its first only interlocutor will be Konfederacja, a nationalist-libertarian formation now led by 36-year-old businessman Slawomir Mentzen.. His programmatic ideology converges with that of PiS, although the latter is even more radical, since Mentzen wants “no Jews, no homosexuals, no abortion, no taxes, no European Union.”. The problem is that this formation has not achieved enough support to form a majority. “We have played too lightly. We removed the harshest demands from the program, including the death penalty in our program. “Such are the consequences of looking like other groups,” the party analyzes.

There is agreement that PiS has made serious mistakes, which the liberal political spectrum appreciates. One of them is that they have not adjusted their program to the demographics. “To put it brutally, in the fact that some of their 2019 voters are no longer here and instead of seeing the new reality, they have closed their eyes. This Government has become intoxicated with power to the point of unconsciousness. The symptoms are confusingly similar to those of alcohol poisoning, so the ability to solve problems decreases, while the belief that one can cope with them increases,” explains Professor Jaroslaw Flis.

Polish observers maintain that the PIS strategy will be to boycott a possible government coalition between the Civic Coalition, the center-right Third Way party, and the New Left with 30. This tripartite would add 248 seats. “This coalition will not bring stability, so the legislature will either be short or it will not begin to work,” says Kownacki, who does not even rule out holding new elections.

The three formations, although with nuances, are pro-European and share an economic model. The priority they have set is to do the impossible for Brussels to unlock the funds from the National Reconstruction Plan. This is a massive financial injection of 158.5 billion zlotys. “I make a solemn promise that the day after the elections I will go and unlock the money from the National Recovery Plan, and we will all notice,” said Tusk upon seeing himself as the winner of the elections.

“Let's bring this money back. We will bring more than 100 billion zlotys to Poland. PiS didn't want that money, but we're going to be able to say goodbye to it, and we need it. That is why today we say: the Third Way or the third legislature of Law and Justice”, is the message from the leaders of that formation.

But according to economists, the most urgent tasks facing the new Government and Parliament include the approval of the budget for 2024, as well as important decisions on anti-inflationary shields for the forecasts of macroeconomic indicators (VAT on food, a possible extension of the solutions that lower the prices of energy vectors). Final decisions on the possible extension of credit moratoriums (and the definition of the announced income threshold) will also have to be made before the end of the year.. This is all the more important since Poland will have one of the highest deficits in the European Union – in real terms, around 5.2% – according to Banco Santander Poland. Only Bulgaria, Slovakia, Malta and Belgium will have it worse.

In a statement to the media, President Duda limited himself to celebrating the high turnout in the elections, almost 73%, and the democratic maturity of the Polish people.. “Elections are a kind of test of the extent to which we are a democratic, mature and supportive society when it comes to deciding for ourselves. Many thanks to all the compatriots who went to cast their vote,” he declared in Rome.

Duda also thanked everyone who participated in the referendum, which has been invalidated due to lack of quorum.. It only registered a participation of 7%. Former Defense Minister and PiS vice-president Antoni Macierewicz blamed the failure on the fact that, according to him, voters were coerced into not taking the referendum ballots.. “It was a criminal action,” he said.

Almost no one paid attention to him when the presidential campaign began in July. Daniel Noboa was semi-unknown inside and outside Ecuador, but he had an initial advantage, his last name. Because there is not a single Ecuadorian who does not know his father, the banana magnate Álvaro Noboa, a five-time presidential candidate and one of the richest men in the country.. From the Pacific to the Amazon, passing through the volcanoes of the Andes.

At only 35 years old, Noboa landed in the early elections almost in the dark, forgotten by the media and the public, at the head of National Democratic Action (ADN), an alliance created by himself with an obvious nod to his father with that DNA of his initials.. Two years earlier he entered the National Assembly with the support of the Socialist Party, the same party that on other occasions accompanied his father in his failed presidential attempts.

Many memes have spread since then on the networks demanding paternity tests due to the great differences between the torrential Álvaro, famous for his phrase “Ser created a mess!” and the restrained Daniel, who has made the most of his academic training to consolidate his campaign towards the Carondelet Palace.

His mother, the doctor Annabella Azín, whose brigades of the New Humanity Crusade Foundation have treated thousands of patients from the most disadvantaged sectors, says that Daniel seems like a young old man, always so responsible, since he was 16 years old as a yard supervisor. From containers. But the reality is that he enjoyed the good life and music, capable of imitating any singer.. Until his father gave him an ultimatum: to study.

Political master's degrees at George Washington University and Harvard, business administration at Stern in New York, and management at the Kellogg School have finally enabled him to become an outsider in the campaign with which Correism wanted to regain power.. And really without Noboa, Rafael Correa would already be packing his bags to return to his country through the front door.

Everything changed when in August Colombian hitmen ended the life of anti-corruption journalist Fernando Villavicencio in Quito, an assassination that hit the country so hard that its citizens turned on their televisions en masse days later to witness the only debate between candidates in the first round.. And Noboa arrived at the television studio with the bulletproof vest that made him famous.. According to what he himself confessed to EL MUNDO, it was a decision he made hours before because “we had to remind people that there is a candidate here who is not here because he was murdered.”. “It was a clear message of protest and the emergency situation in which we live.”

Noboa, an attractive young man, then attracted all eyes in the debate. His intellectual solvency did the rest. In the blink of an eye it went from 2% support to more than 20% in the face of a country that was licking its wounds and looking for urgent solutions. His electoral strategy from day one, employment for young people plus the fight against drug trafficking, did the rest.

A transcendental part of the comeback in both rounds has been played by his wife, the fitness influencer Lavinia Valbonesi, who knew how to multiply the successes of her husband's campaign on social networks, especially on TikTok. 50% of voters in Ecuador are very young, habitual consumers of short videos on the Chinese network. They all wanted something new, an outsider far from the old politics riddled with corruption.

The muscle of the Citizen Revolution in the second round closed the gap, it seemed that the process was taking a long time for Noboa. And when the Correísta González rebounded the most, came the second blow of the centrist leader, who defines himself as a “moderate social democrat.”. Half a million life-size cardboard Noboas took to the streets because the candidate had run out of money for the campaign, but they had a cardboard factory that quickly carried out the order.

Lavinia, his wife, took on the challenge: “I already found out that my husband is being robbed all over the country”. And then, as Álvaro Noboa would surely say, the chaos broke out again.. The cartoon of Noboa sitting at a family's table, in the bed of some young girls, in the hairdresser's, in the church…. Popular ingenuity took him to a massage house to receive therapeutic treatment. In a single stroke, the electoral magician had added social media users as a fundamental part of his surprising path to the presidency.