Main content

“I wake up every day thinking how I can do more to damage Putin’s…regime”

A former minister in Vladimir Putin’s first government says that he wakes up every day thinking about how he can do more to bring down “Vladimir Putin’s brutal, dictatorial regime.”

Vladimir Milov served under Vladimir Putin as Russia’s Deputy Energy Secretary in 2002 but resigned when his plans to modernise the sector were rejected by the president.

He subsequently became involved in Russian opposition politics, aligning himself firstly with the arch Putin critic Boris Nemtsov who was assassinated in 2015. More recently he has worked closely with the opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny who is currently imprisoned in Russia.

Asked by HARDtalk’s Stephen whether he feared for his own safety, Mr Milov said “After all of these cases, after Boris being murdered; Navalny and Kara-Murza being imprisoned and poisoned… I cannot afford myself.”

Mr Milov has been charged in absentia with spreading “fake news” on the Navalny Live YouTube channel.

Release date:

Duration:

2 minutes