On the evening of September 5, lawyer Elena Liptser passed away at the age of 58 after a long battle with a serious illness. The information was confirmed by her daughter-in-law Lyudmila, the wife of her son Alexei, and Dmitry Agranovsky, the head of the law firm "Liptser, Stavitskaya and Partners."
Elena Liptser was the daughter of human rights activist Lev Ponomarev and the mother of lawyer Alexei Liptser, who defended Alexei Navalny in court. In 2025, he, along with two other lawyers of the opposition—Igor Sergunin and Vadim Kobzev—was found guilty in the case of "participating in an extremist community" as part of the proceedings against Navalny himself. Sergunin received 3.5 years, Liptser—5 years, and Kobzev—5.5 years of imprisonment.
In 2003, Elena Liptser joined the defense team of Platon Lebedev, the former head of Menatep, in the Yukos case. In 2005, Lebedev was sentenced to 10 years and 7 months in prison for embezzlement, tax evasion, and money laundering. In 2014, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation reduced his sentence to time served, and Lebedev was released.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky was also involved in the same case, accused of embezzlement and tax evasion. He was sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony, later reduced to 10 years and 10 months. In 2013, Vladimir Putin signed a pardon for Khodorkovsky, after which he left Russia.