Putin does like Santa

That religious turn he's taken is turning Vladimir Putin into a softie.  Not that that's not a good thing as seen in the last few moves and the one below .... however, I hope he does not get wool pulled over his eyes by the Caliphate builders.  

From RTNews:
Vladimir Putin will sign a pardon for jailed ex-Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky “in the nearest time,” the Russian president announced following a large media conference in Moscow.

“He has spent over ten years in confinement – which is a serious term, I believe,” Putin told journalists on Thursday after a four-hour Q&A session with national and foreign media.
In the pardon plea that Khodorkovsky “has written just recently,” he referred to “humanitarian circumstances,” the president said. “His mother is ill. And I think that a decision can be made and the decree on the pardon will be signed in the nearest time.”

Under Russian law, convicts are entitled to seek a pardon, Putin said. However, Khodorkovsky did not do so until recently, when an appeal was finally submitted, he said.
The comment was made after the annual press-conference with over 1,300 journalists present. Just as the president was preparing to leave the conference hall, one of reporters asked him about Khodorkovsky......