Oxford Union Debate: “What Happens in Russia Cannot Just Stay in Russia”

Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center

Oxford Students Agree with Pavel Khodorkovsky that “What Happens in Russia Cannot Just Stay in Russia”

On October 18th, at one of the world’s most famous debating societies, the Oxford Union, a packed chamber debated the motion “This House Believes That What Happens in Russia Stays in Russia”

Speaking on the proposition were: Edward Hicks a student at Oxford’s St Anne’s college, The Independent’s Foreign Correspondent Mary Dejevsky, Chief Executive of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, Stephen Dalziel and a rather reluctant Sir Tony Brenton, former UK Ambassador to Russia.

Speaking on the opposition were: Luke Eaton, Jesus college student and Union Vice-President Elect, Economist International Editor Edward Lucas, Guardian Foreign Correspondent Luke Harding, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s son Pavel Khodorkovsky.

Those on the proposition made the argument that we in the west had no right to lecture or interfere in Russia and that Putin enjoyed the support of the Russian people and we should respect that.

The opposition, drawing on many of their personal experiences, adeptly showed that Putin’s support was based on fear and intimidation. They pointed out that we had a duty to intervene and that the nature of geopolitics means that it is unrealistic to think that what happened in Russia could stay in Russia.

The debate was concluded with a passionate speech from Pavel Khodorkovsky, who appealed to the crowd’s sense of humanity, urging them not to ignore the deaths of Vasily Aleksanyan and Sergei Magnitsky, the imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev and the murder of journalists such as Anna Politkovskay and all of the other “namless ghosts” oppressed by the Russian mafia state. He used his father’s final words in Court in his second trial to close his speech – pointing out what this debate meant for so many ordinary Russians.

At the end of a humorous, enlightening and at times heated debate, the Oxford Union overwhelmingly voted to reject the motion and agreed with the opposition that what happens in Russia cannot and does not stay in Russia. срочный займ payday loan www.zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php займы на карту срочно