Russia charges exiled oligarch Khodorkovsky with ‘terrorism’

Exiled tycoon the latest successful a agelong enactment of radical charged for opposing Moscow’s penetration of Ukraine.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has opened a transgression lawsuit against exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, accusing him of creating a “terrorist organisation” and plotting to violently prehend power.

The FSB said connected Tuesday that the charges subordinate to the activities of a Khodorkovsky-backed radical that opposes the warfare successful Ukraine. Numerous individuals and groups wrong and extracurricular Russia person been prosecuted arsenic the Kremlin has cracked down connected adjacent the smallest motion of dissent concerning its communicative of the penetration of its neighbour.

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There was nary contiguous remark from Khodorkovsky oregon his Anti-War Committee, which has been banned successful Russia.

The lipid tycoon, erstwhile Russia’s richest man, served 10 years successful a Siberian situation connected fraud charges that helium and galore Western countries – wherever his incarceration became a origin celebre – said were politically motivated.

Khodorkovsky roseate to prominence arsenic 1 of a fistful of affluent businessmen who backed erstwhile President Boris Yeltsin successful the 1990s, gaining immense powerfulness implicit the Russian system arsenic a result.

He fell from grace arsenic Yeltsin’s successor, Vladimir Putin, tightened the Kremlin’s grip connected antecedently independent-minded concern figures.

Most of the remaining members of the radical became loyal supporters of Putin. However, immoderate fled, including Roman Abramovich.

Abramovich’s erstwhile mentor, Boris Berezovsky, besides fled to the United Kingdom, wherever helium became a staunch professional of the Russian president. Russian courts handed down numerous sentences against him during his clip successful exile until his death, ruled a suicide contempt immoderate doubt, successful 2013.

Khodorkovsky near Russia aft being released from jailhouse that aforesaid year, acknowledgment to a statesmanlike pardon granted connected the ground that helium would not prosecute successful politics.

In December, Putin’s spokesperson accused Khodorkovsky of failing to support his extremity of the woody aft a Moscow tribunal imposed a good connected the exiled tycoon for administrative violations.

Legislation against discrediting the Russian subject was introduced aft Russia’s full-scale penetration of Ukraine successful February 2022. It has repeatedly been utilized by Russia’s courts to jailhouse and soundlessness Putin’s critics.

In 2024, a tribunal successful St Petersburg jailed Sasha Skochilenko, an creator and musician, for 7 years for swapping supermarket terms tags for those with antiwar messages.

Since 2022, Khodorkovsky has positioned himself arsenic a starring fig among Russian exiles who backmost Kyiv against Moscow. Shortly aft the war’s outbreak, helium was designated a “foreign agent” by Russia.

In December, Khodorkovsky said Russia is simply a “fully fledged totalitarian dictatorship” and helium wants to “fight for a Russia governed by the regularisation of instrumentality and governmental pluralism”.