Russia said on Thursday it would transfer Vasily Aleksanyan, a former Yukos executive gravely ill with Aids, from prison to a specialised clinic as an inter­national outcry mounted over the Harvard-educated lawyer’s continued incarceration.

But Mr Aleksanyan’s lawyers said they had yet to be informed when or where he would be moved. One person close to Mr Aleksanyan warned that the Federal Prisons Service statement about his transfer could be a smokescreen. Another lawyer said he feared that the decision, though welcome, was almost too late.