A court in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has sentenced human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler to 12 years in prison on treason charges, after prosecutors accused her of passing sensitive information to Ukraine.
Bontsler, 66, is one of the few lawyers in Kaliningrad who has defended people in politically motivated cases, including critics of the war in Ukraine. She was also handed an additional year of restrictions on her activities. Prosecutors had sought a 15-year sentence.
In a statement on Telegram, the court did not name Bontsler. It said she had been detained by the FSB security service on allegations that, from 2024, she passed information on security officers in Kaliningrad to Ukraine. Prosecutors also alleged she had given Ukraine information about criminal cases in the exclave that were of interest to Kyiv.
The independent legal project Slovo Zashchite said the trial was held behind closed doors and that Bontsler and her lawyers were barred from attending.
She was allowed only to give a closing statement, the group said. It quoted her lawyers as saying that none of the information cited by prosecutors was secret.
Bontsler was detained in May 2025 and initially charged with “confidential cooperation with a foreign state”, an offence punishable by up to eight years in prison. In March 2026, investigators reclassified the case as treason, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years.
The International Commission of Jurists, which has called for her release, said the treason charge was not based on any new evidence. It said the charge rested on the same Telegram correspondence that underpinned the original case.
"The ICJ considers that Bontsler, who was previously charged with “confidential cooperation with a foreign State”, is being prosecuted for the exercise of her legitimate professional activities." the commission said in a statement released in March 2026.
"The ICJ calls on the Russian authorities to release Maria Bontsler immediately and drop all charges against her," it added.
Slovo Zashchite said Bontsler had been in poor health in detention. Her defence team said in June that she had nearly died in custody after being given medications that were not coordinated with one another, according to the rights group OVD-Info.
The ICJ said that Bontsler, who is 65 years old and suffers from chronic hypertension and multiple gastrointestinal conditions including duodenal ulcers, was denied essential medication for approximately one month.
They added that she also experienced a hypertensive crisis during a court hearing before the medication was provided.
Bontsler founded and for many years led the Kaliningrad branch of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers. In 2022, she was fined for “discrediting” the Russian army after using the word “war” during a court hearing.
Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has passed laws banning the “discrediting” of its armed forces and the spread of what it calls “deliberately false information” about the military.
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Here's your AnewZ Daily Brief for 11 November. Today, we cover Russia-Ukraine peace talks, political tensions in Washington, strikes in Spain, espionage allegations involving Nvidia's CEO, and climate negotiations at COP31 in Türkiye.
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Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is stepping down amid reports linking him to a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China, throwing the future of the $4 trillion chipmaker into uncertainty.
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