Alexei Navalny’s lawyer Igor Sergunin has been released

Igor Sergunin, who served as legal counsel to the late Alexei Navalny, has been released from Pre-trial Detention Centre No. 1 in the Vladimir region, the First Department reported on 23 March.

In January 2025, Igor Sergunin was sentenced to three and a half years in a general-regime penal colony. He was found guilty of participating in an ‘extremist community’ under Article 282.1 of the Russian Criminal Code. The charges stemmed from the legal services he provided to Alexei Navalny while the politician was held in Correctional Colony No. 2 in Pokrov. Investigators claimed the legal team used their professional status to gain access to the colony, acting as intermediaries to pass information between the opposition leader and his associates.

Unlike his co-defendants, Igor Sergunin pleaded guilty to the charges. Having been in custody since October 2023, his actual time served was reduced by the credit received for the period spent in pre-trial detention before his sentence was finalised.

Two other lawyers arrested in the same case, Vadim Kobzev and Alexey Liptser, remain in penal colonies serving sentences of five and a half and five years, respectively, following their joint arrest on 13 October 2023.