Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has launched a criminal investigation against exiled businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other high-profile Kremlin critics, accusing them of planning a violent coup. The FSB announced on Tuesday that it was probing all 22 members of the Russian Antiwar Committee, a group comprised of politicians, business people, journalists, lawyers, artists and academics based abroad who are opposed to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Besides Khodorkovsky, the group includes notable dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and ex-prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov. The FSB statement referred to the group as “Khodorkovsky and his accomplices”. Khodorkovsky dismissed the accusations – including that the Antiwar Committee had funded and recruited Ukrainian paramilitary units – as “absolutely false”. He insisted its activity was solely public, peaceful and humanitarian.
Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon who was once Russia’s wealthiest man, has warned that Putin sees the growing unity of his opponents as the biggest threat to his regime.
He told Reuters: “This alternative point of legitimacy represents the greatest danger for him and his regime.
“What this shows us is that this very approach to building relationships between international institutions and the consolidated Russian opposition… is precisely the right approach.”
Khodorkovsky, who served a decade in a Siberian prison on fraud charges that he and numerous Western nations deemed politically motivated, was pardoned in 2013 and subsequently left Russia.
Since 2022, he has emerged as a prominent figure among Russian exiles opposing Putin. After the onset of the war, Russia labelled him a “foreign agent”.
Now living in London, Khodorkovsky described the latest allegations as a “black mark” from the FSB.
He added: “Without a doubt, such a decision increases the level of risk for those who decide for themselves that they are ready to be an alternative to Putin’s regime.”