Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has opened a criminal case against exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, accusing him of creating a “terrorist organisation” and plotting to violently seize power.
The FSB said on Tuesday that the charges relate to the activities of a Khodorkovsky-backed group that opposes the war in Ukraine. Numerous individuals and groups inside and outside Russia have been prosecuted as the Kremlin has cracked down on even the smallest sign of dissent concerning its narrative of the invasion of its neighbour.
There was no immediate comment from Khodorkovsky or his Anti-War Committee, which has been banned in Russia.
The oil tycoon, once Russia’s richest man, served 10 years in a Siberian prison on fraud charges that he and many Western countries – where his incarceration became a cause celebre – said were politically motivated.
Khodorkovsky rose to prominence as one of a handful of wealthy businessmen who backed former President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, gaining huge power over the Russian economy as a result.
He fell from grace as Yeltsin’s successor, Vladimir Putin, tightened the Kremlin’s grip on previously independent-minded business figures.
Most of the remaining members of the group became loyal supporters of Putin. However, some fled, including Roman Abramovich.
Abramovich’s former mentor, Boris Berezovsky, also fled to the United Kingdom, where he became a staunch critic of the Russian president. Russian courts handed down numerous sentences against him during his time in exile until his death, ruled a suicide despite some doubt, in 2013.
Khodorkovsky left Russia after being released from jail that same year, thanks to a presidential pardon granted on the basis that he would not engage in politics.
In December, Putin’s spokesperson accused Khodorkovsky of failing to keep his end of the deal after a Moscow court imposed a fine on the exiled tycoon for administrative violations.
Legislation against discrediting the Russian military was introduced after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It has repeatedly been used by Russia’s courts to jail and silence Putin’s critics.
In 2024, a court in St Petersburg jailed Sasha Skochilenko, an artist and musician, for seven years for swapping supermarket price tags for those with antiwar messages.
Since 2022, Khodorkovsky has positioned himself as a leading figure among Russian exiles who back Kyiv against Moscow. Shortly after the war’s outbreak, he was designated a “foreign agent” by Russia.
In December, Khodorkovsky said Russia is a “fully fledged totalitarian dictatorship” and he wants to “fight for a Russia governed by the rule of law and political pluralism”.
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