Manufacturing Criminals

The Russians know how to hurt a guy.  In today's Wall Street Journal is a small piece about the Russians bringing charges on Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest billionaire, driven out of the country by charges that kept him in jail for the middle part of his life.  He decided to run against Vladimir Putin in an election and Putin is not one to tolerate that.  The way out of any predicament is to make a criminal of your enemy.  

In my last book, The New Cyberwar, I used the two cases of Ihor Kolomoyski  and Ukrainian Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov who were charged in absentia, just as Khodorkovsky is now.  These two are from Ukraine, and were criminalized on trumped-up charges, just as he has been.  Avadov was charged with "the use of banned ways and methods of warfare", a term that comes from the International Committee of the Red Cross and treaties on the use of war materials that cause unnecessary suffering.  The Russians made posters of these two, one showing Avadov as an evil cartoon character much like the two-faced character  in Batman.   Criminalizing them accomplishes a couple of things:  first, a person will not be able to go back to Russia and his property can be confiscated;  second, the Russians can issue a criminal warrant for his arrest and file it with Interpol.  Anyone knowing such a thing had been done, would be careful to not travel to one of Russia's allies where extradition could take place.  This limits travel and the ability to do business with almost any friends a person might have in Russia.  Khodorkovsky, who lives in Switzerland now, probably could care less about that, but grudges go deep in Russia and don't go away when the problem leaves the country.    He won't be allowed to completely forget.  Some of Putin's enemies have not faired as well, so he may consider himself lucky.