Ten years in prison for Kremlin critic Khodorkovsky

A court in Moscow found the exiled former head of the Yukos oil company guilty of allegedly spreading falsehoods about the Russian army. This was reported by the Russian state news agency Tass.

Khodorkovsky was accused of publishing internal figures on the Russian army's losses in Ukraine in the fall of 2022. In a video from 2024, he criticized the Russian missile strike on a hospital for children with cancer in Kiev, which left two dead and many injured - this was also interpreted as defamation of the army.

One of Kremlin leader Putin's best-known opponents

It is part of the Moscow leadership's strategy to also bring criminal proceedings against Russian opponents of the war in Ukraine abroad. International arrest warrants are sent out in the hope of restricting their freedom of movement.

Khodorkovsky, once the richest man in Russia, was imprisoned from 2003 to 2013 for alleged tax evasion; his oil company Yukos came under state control. In exile, the 62-year-old is one of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's best-known opponents and spends what remains of his fortune on the Russian opposition.