Russia’s internal security agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), has launched a sweeping criminal investigation against prominent exiled opposition figures-including former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky and several well-known Kremlin critics-accusing them of attempting to seize power by force and form a terrorist organization. The move marks one of Moscow’s most aggressive attempts yet to criminalize political dissent abroad and signals deepening tensions with Europe over engagement with Russian opposition movements.

The FSB’s announcement on October 14 alleged that Khodorkovsky and members of the Anti-War Committee of Russia, an organization formed in February 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine, were plotting to overthrow the Russian government. The agency’s statement accused the committee of “violent seizure of power” and “organizing and participating in a terrorist community,” claiming the group was preparing for an armed coup against the constitutional order.

Among those named were several high-profile opposition figures, including former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, chess grandmaster and democracy advocate Garry Kasparov, political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, and veteran dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza. The list also reportedly includes other exiled journalists, activists, and former officials now living in Europe.

For the Kremlin, the move comes at a politically sensitive moment. Just ten days earlier, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) had announced the creation of a “Platform for Dialogue” with Russian democratic forces in exile. The platform, viewed by European lawmakers as a step toward supporting independent Russian voices, was immediately denounced in Moscow as an attempt to “legitimize extremist organizations.” The timing of the FSB’s announcement appears calculated-a signal that the Kremlin will not tolerate Western recognition of its political adversaries.

Once one of Russia’s wealthiest men and head of the oil giant Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was long considered a symbol of the post-Soviet oligarch class. His fall from grace came in 2003, when he publicly confronted President Vladimir Putin over corruption during a televised meeting of business leaders. Months later, Khodorkovsky was arrested on charges of fraud and embezzlement, which he and his supporters have consistently described as politically motivated.

He spent nearly a decade in prison before being pardoned in 2013 and immediately went into exile, settling in London. Since then, he has become one of Putin’s most outspoken critics, using his platforms to promote democracy and support anti-war initiatives.

Khodorkovsky has long warned that Russia’s leadership would eventually turn its full repressive machinery against exiles. In comments posted to Telegram following the FSB’s announcement, he dismissed the accusations as “laughable,” saying they were “clearly a reaction to European outreach to Russian civil society.”

“The story with PACE is seen by the Kremlin as a big problem,” Khodorkovsky wrote. “Hence the new charges about ‘seizing power,’ the lies about ‘recruiting fighters,’ and ‘arming the Ukrainian army.’ Sorry, but no. Humanitarian aid-yes.”

The FSB statement referenced the so-called Berlin Declaration, adopted by the Anti-War Committee in April 2023. The declaration called for the “liquidation of Russia’s current authorities” and outlined a roadmap for a democratic transition after the end of Putin’s rule. According to Russian prosecutors, the document constitutes evidence of a conspiracy to commit treason and terrorism.

The agency further alleged that Khodorkovsky and his associates helped establish the PACE-backed Platform of Russian Democratic Forces, which the FSB described as “a founding assembly for a transitional government” promoted to Western states. Russian officials have condemned the initiative as “foreign interference” and an “information operation” designed to destabilize the country.

In January 2024, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office had already labeled the Anti-War Committee an “undesirable organization,” banning its activities inside Russia and criminalizing cooperation with it. The new charges extend that repression to the international arena, allowing Moscow to pursue cases against exiled figures under anti-terrorism laws.

The FSB’s crackdown also appears to target other prominent dissidents, including Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was released from a Russian prison earlier this year as part of a major prisoner exchange with the West. Despite his release, Russia’s Interior Ministry has now placed him back on a wanted list, reportedly for terrorism-related charges.

Kara-Murza responded to the news with characteristic irony. Writing on social media, he quipped that he was “diversifying [his] terrorist activities,” alternating between the Anti-War Committee and other opposition movements led by Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and Ilya Yashin, another political prisoner turned exile.

Russian lawmakers have hinted that both Navalnaya and Yashin could soon face similar charges, citing their participation in an anti-war rally held in Berlin earlier this year. If pursued, the cases would effectively brand nearly all major Russian opposition figures abroad as terrorists-an escalation of rhetoric designed to delegitimize the entire anti-war movement.

The timing of these cases is not accidental. With parliamentary elections scheduled for next year, the Kremlin appears determined to tighten control over the political landscape-both domestically and internationally. By portraying exiled figures as traitors conspiring with foreign governments, Moscow aims to discredit any alternative narratives emerging from abroad.

The criminal cases also serve a symbolic function: they send a clear warning to those still inside Russia that contact with exiled opposition figures or Western institutions could be treated as collaboration with terrorists.

Analysts note that this pattern echoes Soviet-era tactics, when dissidents who sought refuge abroad were branded as enemies of the state and accused of conspiring with Western intelligence services. Today, the Kremlin appears to be reviving that tradition under the banner of counterterrorism.

For Europe, the investigation poses a diplomatic dilemma. The creation of the PACE platform was intended as a gesture of solidarity with Russian democrats, but Moscow’s furious reaction underscores how any engagement with the opposition is now viewed as a direct attack on Russia’s sovereignty.

By criminalizing dialogue and branding peaceful activists as terrorists, the Kremlin is not only isolating itself further but also hardening the ideological divide between Russia and Europe.

As Khodorkovsky put it bluntly, the FSB’s charges are “not about justice-they are about fear.” That fear, it seems, is not of violence or coups, but of an alternative vision of Russia gaining legitimacy abroad.

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Source: Weekly Blitz :: Writings