The prosecutor’s office will seek a harsher sentence for the three lawyers representing Navalny.

The Vladimir Regional Court has begun hearing an appeal against the sentencing of Alexei Navalny’s lawyers: Alexei Liptsur, Vadim Kobzev, and Igor Sergunin. The prosecution will seek harsher sentences for them. This was reported by Mediazona from the courtroom.

During closing arguments, the prosecution requested that the mitigating factors in Sergunin’s sentence—specifically, his admission of guilt and cooperation with the investigation—be revoked. The prosecutors argued that all evidence against the lawyer was gathered even without his confessions “in a situation of clarity.”

The prosecution also requested that the mitigating circumstance in Kobzev and Liptsur’s sentences—formulated as “severe financial hardship in the family”—be excluded. Prosecutors contend there is no proof this is the case.

The defence, during the hearing, asked the court to accept the statement from the bar association, which found that Kobzev and Liptsur’s professional rights had been violated when their meetings with Navalny were wiretapped. The court refused to add the statement to the case file.

In his own appeal, Igor Sergunin demanded that the original verdict be overturned, as he “voluntarily ended his participation in the extremist community’s activities” in December 2022, when he terminated his agreement with Navalny.

At the appeal hearing, Vadim Kobzev’s lawyer challenged whether the Petushinsky court that sentenced them had jurisdiction. In the defence’s view, the case should have been tried elsewhere, as the last place where “information was passed on” from Navalny, according to the investigation, was a penal colony in Kovrov—a city in the Vladimir region—falling under the jurisdiction of a different court.

The defence also argued that it was improper for evidence to have been obtained by wiretapping phone calls and recordings in the penal colonies. It was noted that the pretext for a court sanction allowing the wiretaps was a report claiming that Navalny supposedly intended to bribe someone. The wiretapping continued solely on this basis, not in connection with the “extremist community” case.

In his appeal, Liptsur’s lawyer pointed out that his client is accused of participating in the extremist community through August 2022, even though he had ended his agreement with Navalny in June of that year. Furthermore, Liptsur was removed from the lawyers’ chat in Signal in July, and he had never even been to the rented flat where Sergunin and Kobzev stayed.

The next hearing, at which the prosecution will request new prison terms for the lawyers, will take place on 22 September.

On 17 January 2025, the Petushinsky District Court of Vladimir region found the three Navalny lawyers guilty of participating in activities of the “extremist community” FBK (Part 2, Article 282.1 of the Russian Criminal Code). Kobzev was sentenced to five and a half years in a general-regime penal colony, Liptsur to five years, and Sergunin to three and a half years. The latter admitted guilt. All three were also banned from practising law for three years.

According to law enforcement, the defendants “used their status in providing legal assistance to gain access to correctional facilities, enabling the regular transmission of information between the leaders, members of the extremist community, and A.A. Navalny, who was thus able to continue to act as leader and head of the extremist community in planning, preparing, facilitating, and committing crimes of an extremist nature.”