The criminal case against Yabloko deputy chair and former Moscow City Duma member Maxim Kruglov became public on October 1, 2025. He was detained in St. Petersburg and transferred to Moscow. The charges concern two identical posts published on his personal Telegram channel and VK page on April 2 and 3, 2022.
In the first post, Kruglov said that, according to the UN, 1,267 civilians had been killed in Ukraine. In the second, he wrote about Bucha, saying Russian troops had been in the city and that after they left, death and destruction remained there. He was sent to pretrial detention the day after his arrest and did not admit guilt.
The court began hearing the case on the merits on April 22. At the May 6 hearing, the indictment was read out and prosecution witness Valery Somov was questioned. He presented himself as a political scientist, but, as Mediazona reported, turned out to be an employee of the municipal agency GBU Zhilishchnik. He said he had come across the posts three years after they were published and later told an FSB officer about them. On May 20, the court questioned Kruglov’s mother and Alina Matveyeva, a volunteer with United Russia’s Young Guard, who said she had personally filed a complaint over the Bucha post.
On June 3, Grigory Yavlinsky and experts who had prepared a psychological and linguistic assessment at the defense’s request testified in court. They concluded that the posts did not contain statements asserting facts about the use of Russian troops. On June 17, Kruglov himself testified. He called the fighting a tragedy and said the loss of life must be stopped as soon as possible through a ceasefire agreement. He also denied harboring hatred toward political opponents or Russian servicemen.
“Have we really gone so far that disagreement is now equated with political hatred? That contradicts the Constitution.”
After his testimony, the court moved to closing arguments. Prosecutor Yulia Guznyaeva asked the court to sentence Kruglov to eight years in prison, while the defense sought an acquittal. In his final statement, the politician said his lifelong motivation had been love for a country “where human rights are respected and human life is valued,” and argued that the case effectively placed political disagreement outside the law. He separately stressed that he had relied on UN data and had called for an international investigation into the events in Bucha, which, he said, ruled out any knowingly false information.
More than 50 people attended the hearing, along with diplomats from Ireland, the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States. Politician Boris Nadezhdin also came to support Kruglov. Judge Elina Babayants opened the session, after which the verdict in the case over the 2022 posts was delivered.