Maria Bontsler

Founder and former head of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of the Kaliningrad region. Since 2007, she has been a practising a lawyer. Defended participants of protests, including anti-war ones. She was a lawyer for Igor Baryshnikov, who was convicted of "fakes" about the Russian Armed Forces because of his posts about the war in Ukraine.

On 28 May 2025, her home was searched, after which Bontsler was detained and charged with confidential cooperation with a foreign state, international or foreign organisation.

On the same day, law enforcement officers came to two other Kaliningrad lawyers, Roman Morozov and Ekaterina Selizarova, who also defended Baryshnikov.

The Investigative Committee claims that in 2024, Bontsler passed information about law enforcerment officers in the Kaliningrad region to the special services of an "unfriendly state", which she learnt in the course of her work as a lawyer. The agency also claims that other lawyers visited by law enforcerment were "aware of the criminal activities of the defendant".

On 29 May 2025, Bontsler was taken into custody.

During the court hearing to appeal the initiation of the case, Bontsler stated that Kirill Takhtov, an FSB officer who used violence against her and who, according to her, had previously repeatedly used violence against those under investigation, was interested in her "arrest and imprisonment".

You can read more about politically persecuted people in the Telegram channel OVD-Info LIVE and our politically motivated criminal prosecutions in Russia database