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Summary points:

• Mikhail Khodorkovsky's release in December 2013 indicated President Putin's confidence that Khodorkovsky no longer represented a threat. Nevertheless, the manner in which Putin made the announcement suggested that there remained powerful forces in the regime opposed to Khodorkovsky's release. A pardon, unlike amnesty, does not require the State Duma's approval.  
   
• Khodorkovsky's political stature has been somewhat diminished by the circumstances attending his release, allowing President Putin to pose as the moral victor and supreme arbiter. Khodorkovsky cannot be a hero for Russia's neo-liberal opposition, and would be an uncomfortable interlocutor for those in the West who would have liked him to become an instrument in their struggle against Putin.
   
• Khodorkovsky's thinking along the lines of 'democratic statism' could provide a liberating formula for the developmental impasse in which Russia finds itself.