FSB opens terrorism case against 22 members of Russian Antiwar Committee in exile

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has opened a criminal case against exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and 22 other members of the Russian Antiwar Committee for “involvement in a terrorist community” and “attempting to seize power by force”, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday.

The FSB said that Khodorkovsky, who co-founded the Russian Antiwar Committee in February 2022 to oppose Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine, had called for the overthrow of the Russian government in its Berlin Declaration, adopted in April 2023.

Other members of the organisation being charged include prominent opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, political scientist Yekaterina Schulmann and Novaya Gazeta Europe editor-in-chief Kirill Martynov.

The charges also relate to a platform set up for Russian democratic forces at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which the FSB said was positioning itself as a “constitutional assembly of the transition period” and an “alternative to the Russian authorities”.

The Council of Europe passed a resolution on 1 October establishing a permanent platform for dialogue with Russian democratic forces. According to the resolution, this shifted its communication with the Russian opposition and civic initiatives to a more structured dialogue. The Council of Europe is also now making plans for a delegation to represent Russian democratic forces.

A statement issued after the resolution by the Free Russia Foundation, a US-based nonprofit coordinating the Russian anti-war movement in exile, noted that the platform would not only bring together politicians in exile, but also bring back to the assembly “the voices of those who today are deprived of the opportunity to speak openly, those who sit in prison … and those who continue to fight the dictatorship inside the country”.