For Khodorkovsky’s money: why are political activists being searched in the “YUKOS case”

How did the “YUKOS case” come about?

YUKOS was one of the leading oil companies in Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2003, charges were brought against the Yukos management for tax evasion, as well as for violations during the privatization of the Apatit mining and processing plant in the Murmansk region in 1994.

The accusations against the leaders of YUKOS coincided at least in time with the conflict between the head of the company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Igor Sechin, then the deputy head of the Russian presidential administration, now the head of Rosneft. Khodorkovsky also openly sponsored political parties opposed to Vladimir Putin.

Many former high-ranking Yukos employees are behind bars. The former chief of Khodorkovsky's security service, Alexei Pichugin, is serving a life sentence on charges of murder and is recognized as a political prisoner by the Memorial Human Rights Center.

Khodorkovsky himself spent ten years behind bars. In 2013, immediately after his release, he managed to travel to the European Union. Since his release, Khodorkovsky has openly supported opposition movements and media in Russia and allocated funding for them.

"A Case of Experts"

In 2013, the so-called “expert case” was separated from the YUKOS case: the then rector of the Russian Economic School Sergei Guriev (after interrogation left Russia for several years), senior researcher at the Institute of Economics and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences Mikhail Subbotin and former judge of the Constitutional Court Tamara Morshchakova.

No one has yet become a suspect in this case. It was opened because the Investigative Committee assumed that the experts who helped the Human Rights Council prepare a report for the president on the so-called “second Yukos case” acted without selfishness. “The second YUKOS case” is a series of accusations against top managers of the bankrupt corporation of embezzlement of money and misappropriation of shares in oil companies.

" Open Russia " and others

People who receive financial support from Khodorkovsky are regularly subject to pressure from Russian law enforcement. In particular, they are still being searched in connection with the “YUKOS case” - despite the fact that some activists were even born after the events that the court considers to be crimes of Khodorkovsky and his business partners.

According to the publication Open Media ( receives funding from Khodorkovsky), the searches are taking place in connection with the privatization of the Apatit plant in the mid-90s, although even against Khodorkovsky the prosecution for this episode was stopped in 2005.

The investigation into the Apatit episode itself is regularly extended. According to Open Media, the “YUKOS case” was extended at least until 2016. One of the reasons for the extension was that former Yukos executives sued Russia in international courts for more than $50 billion for unfounded criminal prosecution and destruction of their company. The Russian authorities consider this decision illegal and stated that they would not pay.

The presence of a criminal case makes it possible to carry out investigative actions. According to the logic of the security forces, Khodorkovsky is using allegedly illegally obtained funds stolen back in the 1990s, so they can come and search anyone who is believed to have financial relations with Khodorkovsky.

Since 2014, searches have been carried out at the homes of activists of Open Russia, a movement initiated by Khodorkovsky. Also in the “YUKOS case,” opposition political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky and journalist Zoya Svetova were searched in 2017, and in 2020, Moscow municipal deputy Yulia Galyamina, one of the initiators of the campaign against Putin’s amendments to the Constitution.

The actions of law enforcement officers have nothing to do with the investigation into the events at the Apatit plant in the mid-1990s. For example, as part of this case, Aleksey Pryanishnikov, coordinator of the “Human Rights Postcard”, was required to provide a saliva sample, documents and cut paper from a shredder were confiscated from the “Open Russia” office in Moscow, and the press secretary of “Open Russia” Natalya Gryaznevich after interrogation in the “YUKOS case” » FSB officers tried to recruit.