Konstantin Rivkin, defence lawyer for Platon Lebedev, filed an appeal following the reading of the guilty verdict of his client. The appeal was filed with the Meshchansky Court clerk's office and addressed to the Moscow Municipal Court collegium for criminal cases. In accordance with existing legislation, the defence has the right to file an appeal within 10 days of the conclusion of the reading of the verdict.

The appeal notes that the defence disagrees with the verdict and considers the court's ruling unlawful and unfounded. The appeal also states that the court's reasoning for ruling the way it did was in direct opposition to the evidence presented in the case.

The defence teams for Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev intend to file a more comprehensive appeal with arguments explaining the erroneous conclusions made by the Meshchansky Court after receiving the complete text of the verdict from the Meshchansky Court. The court is required to provide defence lawyers with a hard copy version of its ruling no later than 5 days following the conclusion of the reading of the verdict.

Genrikh Padva, lead defence lawyer representing Mikhail Khodorkovsky, explained that he did not feel the need to file a short appeal and plans to file a full appeal as soon as possible.