Mikhail Khodorkovsky built his own political, civil and media structures in Russia for several years. For what? And now they are all definitely closed?

On the evening of August 4, Russia blocked the Open Media and MBH Media sites related to Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The next day of the publication, as well as the project “Human Rights Cards” announced the termination of work.

Neither Roskomnadzor nor the Prosecutor General’s Office notified “Open Media” and “MBH Media” about blocking. Both sites are included in the register of resources containing calls for riots, extremism or participation in disagreed protests.

Open Media stated that on August 4, Roskomnadzor sent four letters demanding to delete illegal information, but the letters did not specify what was discussed. In July, open media journalists were included in the list of the media - “foreign agents”. Among them are the editor -in -chief of the publication Julia Yarosh, her deputy Maxim Glykin and correspondent Ilya Rozhdestvensky.

Many Khodorkovsky’s projects are declared “undesirable” in Russia. This means that Russians are forbidden to cooperate with them under the threat of persecution. In July 2021, the British Khodorkovsky Foundation (“Khodorkovsky Foundation”), its subsidiary, the British Oxford Russia Fund (“Oxford Russian Fund”), as well as the British organization Future of Russia Foundation (“Fund for Russia”) were “unwanted” and French European choice ("European choice").

Since 2017, Khodorkovsky’s projects such as Open Russia Civic Movement and Open Russia have have been included in the list of “undesirable organizations”. After that, Open Russia, which was not recognized as “undesirable”, had problems with the authorities. On May 27, “Open Russia” ceased its activities to protect supporters from criminal prosecution.

In the new episode of the podcast “What happened”, we say with the political correspondent of “Medusa” by Andrei Pershev:

• How did Khodorkovsky build his large -scale project of influence on Russian society and power?
• How successful were its structures?
• And what goal all this pursued?

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Presenter - Vladislav Gorin

Editor - Natalia Kondrashova

Installation - Dmitry Bodrov

Music - Victor Davydov