Mikhail Khodorkovsky

On 5 October 2003, Khodorkovsky was detained at Novosibirsk airport. He was taken into custody on charges of large-scale embezzlement, wilful failure to comply with a legally binding court decision, causing property damage to owners through deception, tax evasion by organisations and individuals, document forgery, and misappropriation or embezzlement of property by an organised group on a large scale. The investigation lasted only two months. In May 2005, he was sentenced to nine years in a general-regime penal colony. On 22 September, an appellate court reduced the sentence to eight years.

In the penal colony, he was twice placed in a punishment cell for seven days. On the night of 14 April 2006, his cellmate, Aleksandr Kuchma, stabbed him in the face. In January 2009, the same man filed a lawsuit against Khodorkovsky, accusing him of sexual harassment. In 2011, Kuchma said that two men in plain clothes had come to the colony, beaten him and threatened to kill him, demanding that he murder Khodorkovsky by stabbing him in the eye. Instead, he said, he inflicted only a minor injury.

In December 2006, while serving his sentence in the case concerning embezzlement and tax evasion, Khodorkovsky was transferred from the penal colony to a pre-trial detention centre in Chita, where he was charged with oil theft. In February 2009, he was transferred to Moscow. On 30 December 2010, Khodorkovsky was sentenced to 14 years in a general-regime penal colony. On 24 May 2011, an appellate court reduced the sentence to 13 years. On 20 December 2012, a supervisory court reduced the sentence to 11 years. On 20 December 2013, Khodorkovsky was released from the penal colony following a presidential pardon. He subsequently left Russia.

In December 2015, Khodorkovsky was summoned for questioning as a defendant in the murder case of Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of Nefteyugansk. He was placed on a federal wanted list, and later an international one, and was arrested in absentia.

In January 2024, it became known that Khodorkovsky had been placed on a wanted list in another case, for spreading “false information” about the Armed Forces.

In October 2025, the FSB announced that criminal cases had been opened against Khodorkovsky and other members of the Anti-War Committee of Russia for violent seizure of power and organising the activities of a terrorist community. Khodorkovsky was also charged with publicly justifying terrorism. The charges stemmed from the adoption of the “Berlin Declaration”, calling for a change of power in Russia.