The court declined to toughen the sentences of Navalny’s lawyers, who had received up to 5.5 years in prison.

The Vladimir Regional Court has not increased the sentences of the lawyers Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptser and Igor Sergunin, who at various times defended the politician Alexei Navalny, reports Mediazona.

In addition, the court has reduced their restriction of liberty terms: for Kobzev—down to 11 months, for Liptser—down to ten months, and for Sergunin—down to nine months.

The prosecution had demanded the increase of their punishment. The prosecutor stated that the lawyers had been given “too lenient a sentence.” She insisted on the removal of Sergunin’s admission of guilt and his cooperation with the investigation as mitigating factors. In her words, all evidence of the lawyer’s guilt had been collected even without his confessions “in conditions of obviousness.”

She also described the mitigating circumstance of Liptser’s and Kobzev’s families’ difficult financial situations as unproven.

Specifically, the prosecutor had requested that Kobzev’s sentence be increased to five years and eight months in a general-regime prison colony, Liptser’s to five and a half years, and Sergunin’s to four years.

In January 2025, the Petushinsky District Court found Navalny’s lawyers guilty of participating in an extremist organisation (part 2, article 282.1 of the Russian Criminal Code). Kobzev was sentenced to five and a half years in a general-regime prison colony, Liptser to five years, and Sergunin to three and a half. The court also banned them from practising law for three years.

Security forces claimed that they were participants in the Anti-Corruption Foundation and used their legal status to visit the politician in the penal colony and to “provide regular information exchange between leaders, members of the extremist community and Navalny A A.” According to the investigation, this enabled the politician “to continue carrying out the functions of leader and head of the extremist organisation.”

The lawyers were detained in October 2023. Since then, they have been held in custody. Just over two weeks ago, on 5 September, Yelena Liptser, the mother of Alexei Liptser, died—she was also a lawyer and had worked on high-profile cases, including defending former Menatep head Platon Lebedev in the “Yukos case.” Judge Yuri Paltsev of the Vladimir Regional Court did not allow Liptser to attend his mother’s funeral.