The prosecution has asked the court to sentence columnist Arkady Babchenko to one year in prison in a criminal case on evading the duties imposed on a “foreign agent.” A Mediazona correspondent reported this from courtroom No. 412 of a justice of the peace.
The prosecutor also asked the court to bar Babchenko from administering websites for two years. The case against the columnist became public in May. According to the indictment, it stems from posts published on his Telegram channel in 2025 that, investigators say, lacked the required notice of “foreign agent” status.
Babchenko was added to the Justice Ministry register in April 2023. After that, he was fined twice under administrative cases for failing to comply with “foreign agent” requirements — 50,000 and 30,000 rubles. The state prosecutor said he did not pay those fines.
During closing arguments, the prosecutor said Babchenko disagreed with “the main directions of the foreign and domestic policy of the Russian Federation, including in the field of defense,” and felt “hostility toward the activities of the president.”
“The defense has no evidence at all, because we have neither the defendant nor anyone else,” Babchenko’s court-appointed lawyer said.
At the same time, the defense argued that Babchenko’s guilt had not been proven because it had not been established that the Telegram channel in question actually belonged to him. The lawyer asked the court to dismiss the case.
Babchenko left Russia in 2017. At the first hearing, while reading written evidence, the prosecutor said the columnist had been placed on a wanted list in a case concerning public online calls for “terrorism.” He first mentioned the article on financing “terrorism” — Article 205.1 of the Criminal Code — but then said he had misspoken. Last autumn, a Moscow resident was detained under that same article over a cryptocurrency transfer to an account published by Babchenko. He had been added to Rosfinmonitoring’s list of terrorists and extremists back in 2020, although the specific criminal article involved had not previously been disclosed.