Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former Russian oil tycoon, said yesterday he would go on hunger strike to protest Russia’s failure to provide life-saving medical treatment for his former colleague Vasily Alexanyan, a former Yukos vice-president who is in jail and gravely ill with AIDS.

The European Court of Human Rights has called four times for Mr Aleksanyan to be immediately transferred to a specialized AIDS clinic. But Russia has ignored the ECHR, despite the fact that it warned in a December 21 letter that if Mr Aleksanyan’s health deteriorates further, it could find it in breach of articles 2 and 3 of the European convention on human rights.