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"President Putin violates the constitution and any violent action on the opposition's part is justified today, and that includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working at," the oligarch, looking vibrant despite five years in self-imposed exile, said at his Piccadilly office.
For the past 18 months, "we have been preparing to take power by force in Russia", he said, claiming he would finance this with a fortune that had "tripled" over the past five years.
The disgraced eminence grise of Russia's former president Boris Yeltsin and one-time media baron fled Russia in 2000 after Mr Putin's rise to power, saying charges of large-scale fraud against him were politically motivated. He successfully fought off extradition attempts and in 2003 was granted political asylum in Britain.
Mr Berezovsky said Mr Putin had wrecked the country's post-Soviet constitution. "The Kremlin has demolished Russian federalism, particularly through the law on appointing governors" for the regions, a law the parliament adopted in late 2004, he said.
This reform abolished election of regional chiefs by popular vote and sparked biting criticism in Russia and concerns abroad that Russia's leadership has taken an authoritarian course."Everything that will be done to reestablish the Russian constitution will be constitutional by definition and that will happen before 2008," the year of the next presidential elections, he said.
However, a coup, he said, could only be mounted by "one elite against another in power"."I do not rely on one elite only, military, media, business or secret services - rather on each and all, not excluding even an alliance with former enemies," he said.
Mr Berezovsky's Civil Liberties Foundation recently acknowledged having donated $US21 million ($27.9 million) to sources close to Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition candidate who led the "orange revolution" and then was elected Ukraine's president over a pro-Russian rival.
