Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on Tuesday announced criminal charges against prominent exiled anti-war figures, including former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, accusing them of forming a “terrorist” group and plotting to overthrow the Russian government.
The charges target members of the Russian Anti-War Committee, an organization founded abroad in February 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Besides Khordokovsky, its members include Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza, political commentator Yekatrina Schulmann, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov and philanthropist Boris Zimin.
Authorities in Moscow accused Khodorkovsky and the Anti-War Committee’s co-founders of financing “terrorist Ukrainian paramilitary nationalist units” and recruiting members to “further their goal of forcibly overthrowing Russia’s leadership.”
The FSB said that the Anti-War Committee had called for the “liquidation” of the Russian government. It also said the organization helped create a “Platform of Russian Democratic Forces” at the Council of Europe, which Khodorkovsky has described as a “transitional assembly” and alternative government.
Khodorkovsky denied that the Anti-War Committee finances Ukraine’s military or seeks to seize power in Russia. “The Kremlin sees the PACE story as a big problem,” he wrote on X, referring to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office designated the Anti-War Committee an “undesirable organization” in January 2024, and many of its members have been labeled as “foreign agents.”
The FSB said it was carrying out “investigative actions” but did not provide further details. All those named in the case live abroad.
Khodorkovsky, who faces a separate charge of “publicly inciting terrorist activity,” and the others could face life imprisonment if convicted and extradited under Russia’s terrorism laws.
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