After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in the mid-1990s, he accumulated considerable wealth by obtaining control of a number of Siberian oil fields unified under the name Yukos, one of the major companies to emerge from the privatization of state assets during the 1990s (a scheme known as "Loans for Shares").

[15] In 2014, Khodorkovsky re-launched Open Russia to promote several reforms to Russian civil society, including free and fair elections, political education, protection of journalists and activists, endorsing the rule of law, and ensuring media independence.

"After several years of working mostly to collect Komsomol dues from fellow students", noted Gessen, "he could expect to be appointed to a junior position in city management someplace far from the capital."

As one of Russia's first privately owned banks, Menatep expanded quickly, by using most of the deposits raised to finance Khodorkovsky's import-export operations, which is a questionable practice in itself.

As Gessen explained, the Russian government, after the fall of Communism, "still nominally controlled Russia's largest companies, though they had been variously re-structured, abandoned, or looted by their own executives."

A dozen men, the "new oligarchs", including Khodorkovsky, hit upon the stratagem of lending the government money against collateral consisting of blocks of stock that amounted to controlling interests in those companies.

He also founded internet-training centres for teachers, a forum for the discussion by journalists of reform and democracy, and foundations which finance archaeological digs, cultural exchanges, summer camps for children and a boarding school for orphans.

[33] When Berezovsky had a confrontation with Putin, and felt compelled to leave Russia for London (where he was granted asylum), he assigned his shares in Sibneft to Roman Abramovich.

The combination of the companies closed in October 2003, just prior to the arrest of Khodorkovsky, but through a series of questionable legal maneuvers, the former Sibneft shareholders were able to get the transaction negated.

Gessen describes the trial as a "travesty" and "a Kafka-esque procedure", with the government spending months "on an incoherent account of alleged violations that were criminalized after they were committed, or that were in fact legal activities."

The U.S. State Department said Khodorkovsky's arrest "raised a number of concerns over the arbitrary use of the judicial system" and was likely to be very damaging to foreign investment in Russia, as it appeared there were "selective" prosecutions occurring against Yukos officials but not against others.

Instead, Khodorkovsky began to give speeches arguing that Russia must modernize socially and espouse an open and transparent economy, promoting technology over purely natural resources.

[46] On 29 November 2004, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights published a report, which concluded, "the circumstances of the arrest and prosecution of leading Yukos executives suggest that the interest of the State's action in these cases goes beyond the mere pursuit of criminal justice, to include such elements as to weaken an outspoken political opponent, to intimidate other wealthy individuals and to regain control of strategic economic assets.

Thanks to the support of thousands of people around the world and the personal intervention of the United States President, George W. Bush, she was released in April 2009 after giving birth to a girl on 28 November 2008.

[50] In June 2010, Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and human rights activist, began a campaign to raise awareness of Khodorkovsky's trial and advocate for his release.

[51] In November 2010, Amnesty International Germany began a petition campaign demanding that President Medvedev get an independent review of all criminal charges against Khodorkovsky, to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights.

[53] Yelena Bonner, the widow of Andrei Sakharov, never stopped defending Khodorkhovsky: "I think that any person becomes a political prisoner if the law is applied to him selectively, and this is an absolutely clear case.

The left-wing liberals, including Yabloko, and right-wing Ryzhkov, Khakamada and others should decide whether to join the broad social-democratic coalition or to remain grumpy and without relevance on the political sidelines.

[56] This initiative was made possible by the legal loophole: a convicted felon cannot vote or stand for a parliament, but if his case is lodged with the Court of Appeal he still enjoys all electoral rights.

"Three of Russia's best-selling writers have published their correspondence with Khodorkovsky; composers have dedicated symphonies to him, a dozen artists attended his trial and put together an exhibition of courtroom drawings."

[78] Just a few days before the verdict was read by the judge before the court, Vladimir Putin made public comments with regard to his opinion of Khodorkovsky's guilt, saying "a thief should sit in jail".

[89] According to his official site, Khodorkovsky would have been eligible for early release, but an alleged conspiracy involving jail guards and a cellmate resulted in a statement that he had violated one of the prison rules.

[90] It was predicted that he might be released by the middle of 2011,[91] although Khodorkovsky was found guilty on 27 December 2010 of fresh charges of embezzlement and money laundering, which had the potential of leading to a new sentence of up to 22.5 years.

[93][94] U.S. President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned or expressed concern over Khodorkovsky's extended sentence.

[15] Following his pardon and release from prison on 20 December 2013 at the same time as members of the protest group Pussy Riot,[118] Khodorkovsky made only a few public appearances until the revolution broke out in Ukraine.

[125] On 20 September 2014, Khodorkovsky officially relaunched the Open Russia movement, with a live teleconference broadcast featuring groups of civil society activists and pro-democracy opposition in Kaliningrad, St Petersburg, Voronezh and Ekaterinburg, among others.

According to media around the time of the launch event, Open Russia was intended to unite pro-European Russians in a bid to challenge Putin's grip on power.

"[13] A 3 October 2014, article in the Wall Street Journal stated that Khodorkovsky planned "to bring about a constitutional conference that would shift power away from the Russian presidency and toward the legislature and judiciary."

The attacks included anonymous posters and banners flown across Russian cities likening opposition figures to unsavoury characters from history or labeling them as traitors to Russia.

On 30 April 2023 Khodorkovsky and a large group of exiles, among whom were Dmitry Gudkov, Ilya Ponomarev, Garry Kasparov, Leonid Gozman, Kirill Rogov, Ivan Preobrazhensky, Evgeny Chichvarkin, Boris Zimin, Sergey Guriev, Andrei Illarionov, Mark Feigin, Elena Lukyanova, Marat Gelman, Evgenia Chirikova, Anastasia Shevchenko as well as some 50 others, met in Berlin and signed a joint declaration "in which they declared their commitment to fundamental positions, the first of which is the criminal nature of the Russian war against Ukraine."