Moscow’s Khoroshevsky District Court has begun hearing a criminal case in absentia against 84-year-old human rights advocate Lev Ponomaryov. A Mediazona correspondent reported this from the courtroom.
Ponomaryov is charged under two articles: evading the duties imposed on a “foreign agent” and organizing the activities of an “undesirable” organization. In court, it was stated that, according to the case materials, the activist is currently in France.
According to the prosecution, no later than November 25, 2022, Ponomaryov created the Andrei Sakharov Institute in Paris. In July 2025, the organization was declared “undesirable” in Russia.
The prosecution says that after the ban, Ponomaryov organized the distribution of the institute’s materials, which the case describes as aimed at fostering protest sentiment and discrediting Russia’s state authorities.
The case file also includes a memorandum from the Prosecutor General’s Office that lists, among other alleged violations, a change.org petition calling for the results of the 2024 presidential election not to be recognized. However, the text of the petition itself indicates that Ponomaryov was not its creator but one of its signatories.
A separate episode concerns publications that allegedly lacked the required “foreign agent” disclaimers. On March 19, 2026, Mediazona reported that Russia’s Interior Ministry had placed the activist on its wanted list.
Lev Ponomaryov was added to the “foreign agents” register in late 2020. After that, he was repeatedly fined under administrative protocols related to violations of the legislation on “foreign agents.”