Press Release, 31.08.2026

Photo: Maxim Kruglov

The Moscow City Court has upheld the sentence handed down to Yabloko Deputy Chairman Maxim Kruglov: seven years in a general regime penal colony in the case over so-called “fakes about the army”. The appeal hearing was held behind closed doors.

The court also granted a supplementary appeal from the defence regarding calculation of the sentence, recognising 1 October 2025, rather than 2 October, as stated in the first-instance verdict, as the date of Kruglov’s actual detention.

The Zamoskvoretsky District Court had taken 2 October 2025, the date the detention report was drawn up, as the start of Kruglov’s time in custody. The defence, however, maintained that he had in fact been deprived of his liberty a day earlier: FSB officers detained him in St. Petersburg on 1 October. Throughout that time, he had been unable to move freely.

In the main appeal, lawyer Sergei Badamshin asked the court to overturn the Zamoskvoretsky District Court’s verdict and acquit Maxim Kruglov. The defence described the verdict as unlawful, unfounded and unreasoned, pointing to a mismatch between the court’s conclusions and the actual circumstances of the case, and to significant violations of criminal and criminal procedure law.

One of the appeal’s central arguments concerned an element required for the prosecution’s case — the knowingly false nature of the information disseminated. The defence pointed out that the case file in fact contained evidence that Kruglov had based his posts on specific sources. In particular, the file includes a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights [on the number of victims] containing information similar to that which Kruglov was accused of disseminating. Access to this report is not restricted in Russia.

The defence also cited a psycholinguistic examination of the disputed posts submitted to the court. The experts concluded that Kruglov had accurately conveyed information referencing UN data and the position of Russia’s Ministry of Defence. Furthermore, they found no signs of any intention to disseminate knowingly false information, nor any signs of political or ideological hatred or enmity.

Separately, the defence disputed the court’s finding that Kruglov had acted out of political hatred. The appeal stated that critical assessments of decisions taken by state authorities form part of lawful political activity and cannot be regarded as an expression of hatred.

Another argument concerned the date on which criminal intent had allegedly arisen. The investigation and the prosecution had claimed that Kruglov’s intent arose “no later than 17 March 2020”, even though Article 207.3 was not added to the Criminal Code until March 2022. The first-instance court had changed this date on its own initiative to 2 April 2022. In the defence’s view, the court had thereby effectively corrected the charge in place of the prosecution, violating the principle of adversarial proceedings.

Despite the defence’s arguments, the Moscow City Court found no grounds to overturn the conviction and acquit Kruglov.

During a break before the appeal panel announced its decision, those who had come to support Maxim were let into the courtroom. He addressed those present via video link.

Kruglov spoke of the need for peace demonstrated this summer by millions of Russians, and their desire for life to return to normal and to be lived without fear. He said that the surge in civic engagement and interest in Yabloko’s platform — peace and freedom, a ceasefire, and an end to the persecution of people for their views — had inspired him and given him a sense that his own work, and that of his colleagues, had not been in vain.

Kruglov linked Yabloko’s removal from the elections, his own sentence and that handed down to Lev Shlosberg to the authorities’ attempt to ban and criminalise this public demand, in effect equating political dissent with hatred. At the same time, he stressed, it is impossible to ban the views of millions of people or the future they want for their country.

A substantial part of his address was devoted to Russia’s diversity and to people’s right to hold differing, even opposing, political views. Kruglov called the two-headed eagle of the Russian coat of arms looking in different directions a symbol of this: differences, he said, are not a problem but a resource and a source of strength for the country. Citing Grigory Yavlinsky, he emphasised that the present developments concern not only the fate of Yabloko, his own fate, or that of other political prisoners, but the future of the whole of Russia.

Read the full transcript of Maxim’s speech here.

It should be noted that on 24 June the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Maxim Kruglov to seven years in a general regime penal colony and banned him for three years from engaging in activities related to administering websites and internet resources.