Khodorkovsky launches movement to challenge Putin

Defying strongman Vladimir Putin from his self-imposed exile, ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky today launched an ambitious movement to unite pro-European Russians in a bid to challenge the Kremlin's grip on power.
Once Russia's richest man, Khodorkovsky promised to stay out of politics after he was released from prison late last year following a decade behind bars. But his public attempt to bring together opposition-minded Russians appears to betray his political ambitions.
"A minority will be influential if it is organised," he said during a ceremony broadcast online from Paris as he unveiled his new "Open Russia" movement.
Khodorkovsky stressed that the project -- named after his eponymous charity that was shut down after his imprisonment -- would be an online "platform" for like-minded people, not a political party.

The Kremlin will still likely find the project unsavoury, said the photogenic 51-year-old sporting closely-cropped hair and a casual shirt.
"I expect him to be upset," Khodorkovsky said, referring to his nemesis Putin.

Russian activists and prominent emigres including Paris-based economist Sergei Guriyev and London-based businessman Yevgeny Chichvarkin -- both of whom fled the country under pressure from security services -- joined the three-hour online ceremony.
Khodorkovsky's allies said that even though Putin's grip on power was firm, his rule would one day end. They insisted the time had come to think of Russia's future after Putin.
Khodorkovsky, who lives in Switzerland with his family, openly supported a Ukrainian uprising that ousted a Moscow-backed president in February, but indicated he did not want a bloody revolt for Russia.

The soft-spoken former head of the defunct Yukos oil firm -- who according to his allies was jailed for opposing the Kremlin -- said all those supporting a pro-European course for Russia should unite ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for 2016.