“Cooperation with an unfriendly state”. Kaliningrad human rights lawyer Maria Bonzler, 64, charged with working “against security of Russia”

Maria Bonzler, a prominent human rights lawyer in Russia’s Kaliningrad region, was placed in pre-trial detention accused of “confidential cooperation with a foreign state”. This serious charge, introduced to the Criminal Code in 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, is, in essence, a “treason-lite” offence punishable by three to eight years’ imprisonment.

The Kaliningrad branch of the Investigative Committee officially alleged that in 2024 Bonzler “passed information to the special services of an ‘unfriendly state’ about Kaliningrad security officials, information she obtained through her legal activities”. The exact state remains unknown. The charge falls under Article 275.1 of the Russian Criminal Code, which carries a three-to-eight years prison sentence.

Yesterday, Novaya Gazeta Europe cited unnamed sources saying security services had conducted searches at the homes of three Kaliningrad lawyers, including Bonzler and her colleague Roman Morozov. Both lawyers have a significant history of defending people in politically charged cases. Igor Baryshnikov, whom Bonzler represented, was sentenced in June 2023 to seven and a half years in prison for disseminating what authorities deemed “fake news about the military”: information critical of the war in Ukraine.

The opposition party Yabloko, with which Morozov has been affiliated, later reported that the warrant for the “inspection of premises” at his home mentioned that his colleague Bonzler was “suspected” of treason. The same document reportedly described Morozov as Bonzler’s “partner”.

During the search, conducted by several FSB officers, Morozov’s phone and computer hard drives were confiscated. He was also questioned about any involvement with the activities of Memorial, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights organisation liquidated by Russian courts.

On May 20, a week before Maria Bonzler’s detention, the European Union updated its sanctions list in response to human rights violations in Russia. 28 names were added, including judges, prosecutors, and officials from the Investigative Committee, described as being “involved in the fabrication of the cases against various activists.” Olga Balandina, the Sovetsk City Court judge who sentenced Igor Baryshnikov, was among those placed on this updated sanctions list.

A career human rights defender

Maria Bonzler has long been a key figure in Kaliningrad’s legal community, consistently taking on challenging cases involving activists, opposition figures, and those prosecuted under Russia’s increasingly restrictive laws on expression and assembly.

This is not the first instance of Bonzler facing official pressure. In July 2022, she was fined 30,000 roubles (about $500 at the time) on two separate occasions for “discrediting” the Russian armed forces via statements she made in court whilst defending clients who themselves faced accusations under the same legislation. Bonzler argued that she was fulfilling her professional duty by articulating her clients’ positions. However, the Leningrad District Court judge, Oleg Podushkin, ruled that “law and morality in the legal profession are above the will of the client” and that a lawyer’s actions must comply with the law, not violate it by repeating such statements.

Bonzler’s extensive case history includes representing aforementioned Igor Baryshnikov, sentenced for posts about the war in Ukraine, anarchist Vyacheslav Lukichev, who was fined for “justification of terrorism” over a post on the Telegram app, blogger Nikolai Gorelov, who faced charges of “rehabilitation of Nazism” for a satirical monologue by Adolf Hitler published on VK (the case was eventually dropped), journalist Mikhail Feldman, who was sentenced to two years in a penal colony for “repeated discreditation” of the army over posts about the war in Ukraine, and activist Oleg Savvin, who faced new charges for disseminating “fake news” in a comment on VK about the threat of a nuclear explosion.