Judge Oleg Nefedov may become the head of the Supreme Court’s civil panel, Vedomosti reported on May 18. The meeting at which his candidacy is to be considered is scheduled for May 25 to May 29. Novaya-Europe compiled information about his background, rulings, and possible appointment.
The post is currently held by Yury Glazov. As The Insider noted, his term expires in September, and he did not put himself forward for another term. The human rights group Pervy Otdel says Nefedov’s possible appointment is taking place amid major кадровые changes being carried out since 2025 by Supreme Court chairman Igor Krasnov.
The civil panel, which Nefedov may lead, is considered one of the busiest divisions of the Supreme Court. It handles disputes between citizens and banks, insurance companies, employers, and developers, and also shapes judicial practice in such cases.
Career path
From 1996 to 1999, Nefedov worked as an investigator and senior investigator in the Ulyanovsk prosecutor’s office. He then spent several years as a lawyer at an insurance company. In 2004, he became a judge of the Leninsky District Court in Ulyanovsk, and in 2010 he moved to the Ulyanovsk Regional Court, where he headed a judicial division of the civil panel. In 2017, he was appointed a judge of Russia’s Supreme Court. Since 2023, he has led the first-instance judicial division of the Supreme Court’s administrative panel, and in March 2026 he was appointed deputy chairman of the Supreme Court and head of the disciplinary panel.
Most notable rulings
Among the cases associated with Nefedov are the November 2023 ruling declaring the nonexistent “international LGBT movement” “extremist,” the ban on the “International Satanism Movement,” and the designation of FBK as a “terrorist organization” in 2025. He also heard Alexei Navalny’s lawsuits against a penal colony in the Vladimir region and the Justice Ministry, denied registration to presidential hopefuls Yekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin, and ruled to suspend the ban on the Taliban.
Property and legal assessments
According to Novaya-Europe, Nefedov’s family owns a 200-square-meter apartment in the Dolina Setun residential complex in Moscow, located in the Ramenki district near the Mosfilmovsky Pond. The project description says the building has marble facades and lobby chandeliers made of Murano glass and 24-karat gold. According to Cian data, apartments of similar size in the building cost about 190 million rubles. Nefedov himself, according to leaked data, keeps about 5.8 million rubles in bank deposits.
Yevgeny Smirnov, a lawyer with Pervy Otdel, told Novaya-Europe that Nefedov’s possible appointment would be “an unequivocal promotion,” both formally and in terms of influence within the judicial system. According to him, Nefedov would effectively oversee the Supreme Court’s civil work and would be able to influence personnel policy as well.
Smirnov believes the promotion was a reward for “loyalty” and for taking part in politically significant rulings, from the ban on the “LGBT movement” to declaring FBK a “terrorist” organization. In his view, Nefedov is an “ideal candidate to finally remove justice from the system, replacing it with clerical processing of decisions.”
Maks Olenichev, a lawyer cooperating with Pervy Otdel, told Novaya-Europe that the Supreme Court’s civil panel plays a key role in cases involving the nationalization of property, asset seizures, and so-called “deprivatization.” According to him, the head of the panel can influence the shaping of judicial practice, the distribution of cases among judges, and which cases will be reviewed by the Supreme Court.