Official position/function regarding the conflict

МBK-Media is a network socio-political information outlet created by Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It was founded after the blocking of the Open Russia website by Roskomnadzor in 2017. Over the short period since its establishment (2017), MBK-Media has become one of the most influential independent information resources with a developed reporters network in the regions of Russia and abroad. In 2019, it was among the ten most-cited Internet websites. It was repeatedly nominated and received numerous journalistic awards.

The website is currently blocked in the territory of Russia and is available only on the mirror or through VPN services.

MBK-Media is one of the projects of Open Russia organization, founded by Khodorkovsky back in the days of Yukos, in the early 2000s. In 2017, the Prosecutor-General’s Office of the Russian Federation entered three foreign legal entities – Otkrytaya Rossia and Open Russia Civic Movement (both from the UK) and the Institute of Modern Russia, Inc. (USA), headed by Khodorkovsky’s son Pavel, into the register of “undesirable organizations.” For some reason, this gave the Russian special services a reason to persecute the Russian movement “Open Russia,” although formally it has nothing to do with them, does not have a legal entity, and most importantly, it cannot be an “undesirable organization” (according to the law, these can only be foreign NPO).

With regard to the conflict region, MBK-Media takes a balanced position, actively criticizes the Russian authorities, and gives the floor to the opposition and pro-Ukrainian authors.

Actions regarding the conflict region

MBK-Media was created as an independent information resource for providing impartial coverage of events, including in Ukraine. Dozens of articles by Russian and Ukrainian authors are devoted to the military conflict, as well as the humanitarian situation in Donbas.