MOSCOW — Friends of YUKOS former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Menatep head Platon Lebedev have made a decision to pay compensations claimed by the tax agencies. Khodorkovsky has announced at a court session today that according to information from his lawyers, his friends had decided to pay compensations claimed from Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in connection with the accusations of individual tax evasion. "Please note that this does not mean that I have agreed with these claims," Khodorkovsky said. He did not give the names of his friends who made this decision.

Genrikh Padva, a lawyer for Khodorkovsky, has told reporters that the compensations had not yet been paid. "(Khodorkovsky's) friends have only announced their willingness to do it," the lawyer said. The final amount of claims against Khodorkovsky is almost RUR61m ($2.2m), and the corresponding figure for Lebedev reaches nearly RUR16m ($577,617).