Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (born 26 June 1963), also known by his initials MBK, is a Russian businessman, former oligarch, and opposition activist living in exile in London. In 2003, he was considered Russia’s richest person, with an estimated net worth of $15 billion, ranking 16th on the Forbes billionaires list. During the Soviet era, he rose through the ranks of the Komsomol youth organization and launched several ventures in the late 1980s amid glasnost and perestroika. In 1989, he became chairman of Bank Menatep, a bank he had founded. Following the Soviet Union’s collapse, he amassed a vast fortune in the mid-1990s by acquiring Siberian oil fields that were consolidated into Yukos, a major company formed through the “Loans for Shares” privatization program.

In 2001, Khodorkovsky established Open Russia, a reformist group aimed at strengthening civil society. In October 2003, he was arrested on fraud charges. Shortly afterward, the government of President Vladimir Putin froze Yukos shares over tax allegations. Subsequent government actions caused Yukos’s share price to collapse, wiping out much of Khodorkovsky’s wealth. In May 2005, he was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison. In December 2010, while still serving that sentence, he and business partner Platon Lebedev were found guilty of additional charges of embezzlement and money laundering, extending his sentence until 2014. After former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher lobbied for his release, Putin pardoned Khodorkovsky, and he was freed on 20 December 2013.

The trials drew widespread international concern over political motivation and were criticized abroad for lacking due process. Khodorkovsky filed multiple applications with the European Court of Human Rights, alleging violations of his rights. In response to his first application, covering 2003 to 2005, the court found several violations by Russian authorities but ultimately ruled the trial was not politically motivated, stating the charges were based on “reasonable suspicion.” Amnesty International considered him a prisoner of conscience.

After his pardon and release, Khodorkovsky immediately left Russia and was granted residency in Switzerland. By the end of 2013, his personal wealth was roughly estimated at $100–250 million; by the end of 2014, it was said to be about $500 million. In 2015, he moved to London. In December 2016, the Dublin District Court unfroze $100 million of his assets held in Ireland. In 2014, he relaunched Open Russia to promote reforms such as free elections, political education, protection of journalists and activists, rule of law, and media independence. *The Economist* described him as “the Kremlin’s leading critic-in-exile.”

Khodorkovsky’s parents, Boris and Marina, were engineers at a Moscow measuring-instruments factory. His father was Jewish; his mother was Orthodox Christian. Both opposed communism but kept this from their son, born in 1963. Having lived through rising state anti-Semitism and Stalin’s death, they were part of a generation of educated Soviets who quietly supported dissidents. The family was moderately well-off, living in a two-room flat in a Moscow suburb. According to journalist Masha Gessen, they faced a dilemma: speak openly against the Soviet system and risk making their child miserable, or raise a contented conformist. They chose the latter, with results exceeding expectations—Mikhail became a fervent Communist and Soviet patriot.

Ambitious and an excellent student, Khodorkovsky became deputy head of the Komsomol at the D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia, graduating in 1986 with a degree in chemical engineering. While at the institute, he married fellow student Yelena; they had a son, Pavel. In 1986, he met 18-year-old Inna, a fellow student and Komsomol colleague. He courted her, sleeping in his car until she took him in. They had a daughter and twin sons. He remained on good terms with his first wife, who later actively campaigned for his release from prison.

After graduating, Khodorkovsky worked full-time for the Komsomol, a typical path to a Soviet political career. Gessen noted that after years of collecting Komsomol dues, he could expect a junior post far from Moscow. Instead, he seized quasi-official and often extra-legal business opportunities, launching a business career with Komsomol partners under the organization’s authority.