MOSCOW, December 21, (ITAR-TASS). The decision to pardon Mikhail Khodorkovsky should soften the situation in the country, Russian human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said.

“I hope that this decision will exert a positive influence on the gradual softening of the situation in the country and will make us to listen to each other more, understand each other more and behave toward each other, let’s say, more kindly and generously,” he said on Rossiya 1 television channel.

“This is good news, I think, this is very good news for all and for that man, who had suffered much, and a part of his life, so to say, shaped up so tragically. This is now good news for his parents who have health problems, as we know,” Lukin said.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Russian oil tycoon, who had been jailed for a decade, was freed by a presidential pardon.