Putin frees his enemies as part of Sochi spin

It came as a shock for both those released and the general public, President Vladimir Putin's move to pardon his foes has allowed him to seize the news agenda in his favour and temper criticism of his rule less than two months before the Sochi Games.
Putin is dribbling out a headline day after day in the media and seems to be controlling the message. First, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was released after a decade in prison, then Pussy Riot activists were pardoned and now 30 Greenpeace activists are awaiting their turn.
The abrupt move by Putin to release his adversaries mixed the elements of an astute spin effort with a crude KGB-style operation.

The pardons could help repair some of the damage to Russia's image before the Winter Olympics, which run February 7-23, but it does not ease tensions with the West over Ukraine and other issues, including gay rights, and keeps tight Kremlin control over Russia's political scene unchanged.
No one in Russia expected Putin to release Khodorkovsky, his arch-foe and once Russia's richest man, after more than a decade in prison.
In fact, most observers felt pretty certain that authorities would file another set of criminal charges against the former oil tycoon to prevent him from walking free after serving his term.

One-time Kremlin insider, political consultant Gleb Pavlovsky, saw the gloomy expectations as part of a carefully choreographed performance ending with Khodorkovsky's surprise release and his swift move to Germany.

"It's quite obvious that it was timed for Christmas," Pavlovsky said. "Putin has turned it into a big European and global show."
Putin announced his decision to pardon Khodorkovsky as he was walking out of a four-hour news conference in response to a question from a Kremlin-friendly news outlet. If he did that at the news conference, it would have diverted attention from other subjects and spoiled the show.
Khodorkovsky told the media in Berlin that Putin's statement came as a surprise to him, even though he had submitted a request for a pardon on German advice.

A few hours later, he was taken from his bunk in the middle of the night, flown away from prison in a helicopter and put on Germany-bound private jet.
Some compared Khodorkovsky's release to the expulsion of dissidents during Cold War times, when Putin served as a KGB officer.