Maria Bonzler

Founder and former head of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of the Kaliningrad region. Since 2007, she has been a practicing lawyer. She defended participants of protest actions, including anti-war ones. She was a lawyer for Igor Baryshnikov, who was convicted in a criminal case 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 Bonzler was detained in a case under the article on confidential cooperation with a foreign state, international or foreign organisation.

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

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

On 29 May 2025, Bonzler was taken into custody.

During the court hearing to appeal the initiation of the case, Bonzler stated that the FSB officer Kirill Takhtov, who used violence against her and who, according to her, had previously repeatedly used violence against persons 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