Only 14% of respondents consider that the new charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are linked to recently uncovered circumstances of their financial crimes. That is one finding of
the Levada Centre’s regular poll, “Popular attitudes in Russia to the Yukos affair”, held in October 2007.

12% believe the new charges, brought this year by the Prosecutor General's office, were intended to prevent Khodorkovsky being paroled and able to influence Russian political life. 11% view the measure as the authorities’ attempt to deny him the chance of release and of laying claim to his confiscated property. 9% are sure that the charges were brought to hinder the review of Khodorkovsky’s case now under way in Strasbourg (European Court of Human Rights).

Whether the respondent favours parole for Khodorkovsky depends on where the person resides, the occupation they pursue and their political inclinations. There is a tendency towards a positive response among Muscovites (36%), managers (36%), students (59%) and housewives (38%) and those who voted for Mironov (57%), Malyshkin (47%) and Glazyev (42%) at the last presidential elections.

The notable role Khodorkovsky continues to play in Russian public opinion is confirmed by the agreement of 46% of respondents with the statement in his recent letter that the disorganised conditions of our country and of the way it is ruled are the result of a lack of morality, moral principles and convictions. 20% did not agree.

Those taking part in the poll gave a negative assessment of the destruction of Yukos by the authorities. 53% of Russians consider that bankrupting the oil company benefited officials and a group of businessmen close to those in power. Only 6% said that the entire population were the beneficiaries.

42% consider that the funds raised from selling Yukos assets were simply looted. 4% and 6%, respectively, believe that the money was used to support social needs (medicine, education) or to develop the state oil-extracting sector. More than 37% said they did not know how the funds had been used.

Asked whether the Yukos affair had changed Russian business as a whole, the great majority (54%) replied that everything remained as before. Only 6% said that business had become more transparent. 9% considered, on the contrary, that business in Russia had become less open and law-abiding.

As concerns public interest, 40% of respondents believe that the authorities have managed to make Russians forget about the Yukos affair. Only 19% say that public interest is still focused, to a greater or lesser extent, on the progress of the case. In October 2007, four years after Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested, 30% of Russians continue to follow what is happening to the company and its owners, compared to 45% who are not interested and 22% who have heard nothing about the case.

The poll was conducted by the Yury Levada analytical centre between 12 and 15 October 2007. A total of 1600 individuals, aged 18 and over, were interviewed. Those polled were taken from a representative sample for the entire Russian Federation, reflecting the main socio-occupational and socio-demographic characteristics of the country’s adult population.