The FSB reported that the charges concern the activities of the Russian Anti-War Committee, which opposes the invasion of Ukraine. Previously, the Committee, which Khodorkovsky co-founded, was considered an “undesirable organization” in Russia.
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Charges against Mikhail Khodorkovsky
The Anti-War Committee of Russia stayed founded on February 27, 2022, three days after Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine, by a group of famous Russians living in exile. Activists called on the international community to recognize the Kremlin authorities who ordered the attack on Ukraine as “war criminals guilty of violating international law.”
The founders of the Committee included Khodorkovsky, former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, economists Sergei Alexashenko and Sergei Guriyev, businessmen Boris Zimin and Yevgeny Chichvarkin, and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza. One of the directions of the Committee's activities was collecting funds for humanitarian aid for Ukrainians.
Khodorkovsky was at the beginning of Vladimir Putin's rule one of the richest people in Russia. In 2003, he was arrested when he came into conflict with the Kremlin, accused Putin's entourage of corruption and began to financially support the opposition.
In 2005, he was sentenced to nearly 11 years in a labor camp for alleged economic crimes. He never pleaded guilty to the crimes he was accused of and claimed that his arrest and trial were a punishment for his political ambitions. In 2013, he was pardoned by Putin and went abroad.
