Mihail Khodorkovsky was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison. The businessman is accused of promoting falsehoods about the army.
He was banned from administering websites for five years, according to Mediazona. The process was initiated following a post on the former social network Twitter, now called X, and a video on the politician’s YouTube channel.
In September 2022, Hodorkovsky published a “leaked letter”, which is presumed to have been sent by the Deputy Minister of Finance, Irina Okladnikova, to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Grigorenko. The document revealed that by mid-August 2022, 48,759 Russian soldiers had died in the war in Ukraine.
According to the indictment, the politician’s statements were incompatible with Russia’s official position, and the letter was allegedly a forgery. Also, the court deemed as false a video clip about the bombing of the Okhmatdet hospital in Kiev, published on Hodorkovsky’s YouTube channel in July 2024.
The defense requested acquittal, while the prosecution – 14 years of imprisonment.
In October last year, the FSB reported another criminal case against Hodorkovski and other members of the “Anti-War Committee in Russia”, declared extremist by the Kremlin. The publicist was accused of belonging to a terrorist organization, violent seizure of power, and public calls for terrorism.