THE opponent of the Kremlin Mikhail Khodorkovsky said Thursday that he does not expect peace in Ukraine as long as the president remains in power in Russia Vladimir Putin.

“As long as the Putin regime is in power, the war will not end,” Mr Khodorkovsky told reporters in Munich, a day before the start of the Munich Security Conference.

Former adviser to ex-president Barys Yeltsin and powerful oligarch said in his new book, titled “How do you slay a dragon”.

In his opinion once richest man in Russia, head of the Yukos oil company — was convicted of fraud in a trial he described as political after he publicly criticized the head of state, was jailed for nine years and jailed for years before being pardoned by Mr Putin in 2013, while he saw the his business to go bankrupt—the war in Ukraine is deeply dividing Russia, even members of the same families. It is not, to this day, a war of the Russian people, he insisted.

If under conditions of “dictatorship” the 15 to 20% of citizens say they oppose the war, the percentage is actually much higher, he pointed out.

He believes that those who “actively support” the war are few, as are those who intend to enlist.

Always according to Mr. Khodorkovsky, President Putin is trying to make citizens believe that the reasons for the war no longer matter and that Russia’s defeat will be a disaster for Russians themselves and their families.

For the London-exiled onetime oligarch, 59, Russia is not really a federation, but highly centralized state that needs external enemies to exist.