A Moscow court on Friday ordered the seizure of assets belonging to the arrested deputy chairman of the liberal Yabloko party as part of a criminal case against him for spreading “fakes” about the military.
Maxim Kruglov faces up to 10 years in prison on the charges, which are connected to two Telegram posts from April 2022 in which he spoke out against the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He has denied the charges, calling them “absurd.”
Kruglov was arrested and placed in pre-trial detention early this month until at least Nov. 29.
The Zamoskvoretsky District Court’s ruling to confiscate his assets will take effect on Oct. 28, according to the Moscow court system’s website.
Kruglov’s lawyer, Natalia Tikhonova, has vowed to appeal the asset seizure.
“This [ruling] isn’t common practice. Maxim Sergeyevich [Kruglov] is not a businessman, doesn’t have any exorbitant incomes and the like,” Tikhonova told the legal defense and advocacy group Slovo Zashchite on Thursday.
Tikhonova has said the charges stem from Kruglov’s Telegram posts citing United Nations data on civilian deaths in Mariupol and Bucha. Russia has blamed Ukrainian forces for deaths in Mariupol and denies that its troops committed atrocities in Bucha.
Kruglov served as a Moscow city councillor from 2019 to 2024. He became Yabloko’s deputy chairman in December 2023.
He was earlier designated as a “foreign agent.”
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