Russia’s financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring on Wednesday added former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and exiled opposition figure Dmitry Gudkov to its list of “terrorists and extremists.”
The move comes one month after Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced criminal charges against 23 members of the Russian Anti-War Committee, an organization founded abroad after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Khodorkovsky, who now lives in the United Kingdom, and Gudkov, who served in Russia’s lower-house State Duma from 2011 to 2016, are among the nearly two dozen individuals charged in that case.
Rosfinmonitoring has added several other anti-war figures to its list of “terrorists and extremists” over the past week, including political analyst Ekaterina Schulmann, philanthropist Boris Zimin and former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, among others.
All of the targeted individuals have been accused of trying to violently overthrow the Russian government and “organizing a terrorist community.” They have also been designated as “foreign agents” by the Russian Justice Ministry.
The 23 charged members of the Anti-War Committee could face life imprisonment if convicted and extradited under Russia’s terrorism laws.
Khodorkovsky denied that the Anti-War Committee funds Ukraine’s military or seeks to seize power in Russia.
Russian banks are legally required to freeze the assets of individuals on the Rosfinmonitoring list and halt all financial services to them.
Rosfinmonitoring’s list of “terrorists and extremists” includes more than 17,800 individuals and over 800 organizations.
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office designated the Anti-War Committee an “undesirable organization” in January 2024.
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