Russian court jails rights lawyer Maria Bontsler for 12 years on treason charge

A court in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad sentenced rights lawyer Maria Bontsler to 12 years in prison on a treason charge on Thursday, the rights group Slovo Zashchite reported.

Bontsler, 66, was accused by prosecutors of passing information to Ukraine since 2024 about security officers in Kaliningrad, which sits on the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Poland. Prosecutors also alleged she provided Kyiv with details of criminal cases in the exclave. They had sought a sentence of 15 years; the court imposed 12 years along with an extra year of restrictions on her activity.

Slovo Zashchite, which said Bontsler had worked with defendants accused of political offences in Kaliningrad, reported that the trial was held behind closed doors and that she and her lawyers were prevented from attending. She was permitted only to deliver a closing statement. Her lawyers argued that none of the information cited by prosecutors was classified and that she had been in poor health during detention.

A court statement posted on Telegram did not name her but confirmed the FSB intelligence agency had detained her on the Ukraine-related allegations.

The sentence follows a pattern of pressure on defence lawyers in Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In January 2025, a court sentenced three lawyers of the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny to between three and a half and five and a half years on extremism charges.