Press Release, 20.10.2025

On 13 November, Yabloko will hold a new charity auction in support of political prisoners’ families. The action will be the seventh in a row, and the funds raised will traditionally go to help relatives and lawyers of political prisoners. The event will take place simultaneously on two platforms — online and at the Yabloko office in Moscow.

Auction participants will be able to buy books, personal items and art objects provided by well-known donors. One of them this time is film director and screenwriter Andrei Zvyagintsev. He will donate to the auction a clapperboard that he is currently using whilst filming the new drama “Minotaur”.

The full list of donors will be published immediately before the auction.

It should be noted that Yabloko’s charity auctions have been held since 2019. Initially, events were held once a year, and every six months in the past years. Regularly, several million roubles are raised at the auction platform, which are transferred to political prisoners’ families and intended for paying lawyers, expenses for procedural costs, medicines and essentials. For example, the sixth auction, which took place in April 2025, lasted five hours and raised almost 2.9 million roubles. Together with donations, the total amount of funds raised was 3,051,000 roubles.

The list of political prisoners whose families receive assistance is updated each time. It includes eight people — both defendants in high-profile political cases and not so widely known political prisoners whose trials were covered by the media to a lesser extent or not covered at all. This is the auction’s mission — to draw attention to people who are persecuted for thoughts, words or conscientious work throughout the country, emphasises event organiser and Moscow Yabloko Deputy Chairman Kirill Goncharov: “We dream of holding auctions as infrequently as possible or not at all, we dream that there would be no political prisoners. But whilst they exist, there will be such auctions.”

Funds raised at the seventh auction will be directed to the familieis of the following prisoners:

The family of human rights defender Maria Bontsler. Over decades of work as a lawyer, Maria Bontsler helped numerous activists and political prisoners, she specialised in defending the rights of conscripts and investigating deaths of military personnel; founder of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers (1995); author of books about soldiers who died because of the army system; since 2022 defended dozens accused of “discrediting” the army. Arrested in May 2025, accused of “confidential cooperation with a foreign state” (Article 275.1 of the Criminal Code). Being held in a remand prison in Kaliningrad, where she is not receiving necessary medical care, despite a threat to her life due to serious health problems.

The family of nuclear physics institute technician Dmitry Bogmut. Dmitry Bogmut, 50-year-old employee of the St.Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics, was arrested in April 2024. According to the prosecution, a year before his arrest, Bogmut, whilst at work at the institute in Gatchina, “publicly disseminated on a certain website texts, video recordings and images with knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation outside the territory of the Russian Federation”. At present, the court of first instance is considering the criminal case against Dmitry. He is charged with disseminating “fakes” about the army “motivated by hatred” (Article 207.3, Part 2, point “d” of the Criminal Code).

The family of hairdresser Anna Alexandrova. 47-year-old resident of the village of Korpikülä (the Leningrad Region) Anna Alexandrova worked in Pushkin as a hairdresser until 21 November 2023. On that day, police officers came to her home with a search, after which Anna was arrested on charges of disseminating “fakes” about the Russian army (Article 207.3, Part 2, point “d” of the Criminal Code). A neighbour wrote a denunciation about Anna due to a conflict related to a land plot. In April 2025, Anna was sentenced to 5 years and 2 months in a penal colony. The case is at the appeal stage. Anna has two children, both minors at the time of their mother’s arrest, which was grounds for a preventive measure not involving deprivation of liberty. However, Anna has been in a detention prison for two years, where her chronic spinal disease has worsened.

The family of journalist Antonina Favorskaya (Kravtsova). The journalist covered proceedings against political prisoners. Arrested in March 2024 on charges of participating in the activities of an extremist organisation (Article 282.1, Part 2 of the Criminal Code), she was sentenced to 5 years and 6 months in a penal colony in April 2025. The case is at the appeal stage. Antonina is being held in a remand prison in Moscow and is suing the Ministry of Internal Affairs, demanding recognition of escort conditions as inhumane and ordering a technical examination of the prison vans in which prisoners are transported. Consideration of her lawsuit, according to human rights defenders, has been postponed by courts at least ten times.

The family of dog handler Anastasia Zibrova. In 2011-2016, Anastasia worked as a dog handler in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. Zibrova is a combat veteran with departmental awards. Before her arrest in 2024, she was raising her six-year-old daughter alone and caring for her elderly grandmother. A year earlier, in August 2023, police conducted an “inspection” in her flat in the Moscow region, and in October 2023 opened a criminal case against her for disseminating “fakes” about the army (point “d” Part 2 Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). On 28 August 2024, Anastasia was sentenced to five years in a penal colony, on 26 November the sentence was upheld on appeal, on 28 May 2025 (already in cassation) the sentence was overturned and returned to the public prosecutor’s office. On 18 September 2025, Anastasia was again sentenced to five years in a penal colony. The case is at the appeal stage.

The family of activist Alexander Nozdrinov. Until spring 2022, Alexander lived with his wife and three children in the city of Novokubansk in the Krasnodar Region. Nozdrinov maintained a blog in which he criticised the work of the traffic police and security forces. In March 2022, a series of searches took place in his home, after which Alexander was arrested on charges of publicly disseminating “fakes” about the army (Article 207.3, Part 2 of the Criminal Code) and placed in a remand prison. In September 2023, the court sentenced Alexander to 8.5 years imprisonment. The sentence was upheld on appeal and in cassation and entered into force.

The family of student Anna Arkhipova. Resident of Novosibirsk’s Academgorodok, political activist Anna Arkhipova has been deprived of liberty since 6 June 2023. She is accused of disseminating “fakes” about the army, of public calls for “activities directed against state security”, organisation and participation in an extremist community, rehabilitation of Nazism, creating an NGO encroaching on citizens’ rights and incitement to mass disorder (Article 207.3, Part 2 of the Criminal Code; Article 280.4, Part 3 of the Criminal Code; Article 282.1, Part 1 of the Criminal Code; Article 282.1, Part 2 of the Criminal Code; and Article 354.1, Part 4 of the Criminal Code). Anna is currently being held in a remand prison. The case is being considered by the court of first instance.

The family of politician Maxim Kruglov. Kruglov is Yabloko Deputy Chairman, member of the party’s Federal Bureau, and leader of the Yabloko faction in Moscow City Duma (2019-2024), candidate of political sciences, lecturer. Maxim Kruglov’s political history is available on the Yabloko website. He was detained by the Investigative Committee on 1 October 2025 on charges of disseminating “fakes” about the army (Article 207.3, Part 2, point “d” of the Criminal Code). Maxim is currently being held in remand prison No. 2 Butyrka.