Professor Savva* was convicted of failing to perform his duties as a foreign agent.

A court in Krasnodar found Mikhail Savva*, who left Russia 11 years ago, guilty of failing to fulfill his duties as a foreign agent.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," in October 2023, the Ministry of Justice added Mikhail Savva, a former professor at Kuban State University, to the register of foreign agents. Savva left Russia in 2015 and now lives in Ukraine.

The Sovetsky District Court of Krasnodar found Mikhail Savva guilty of evading his duties as a foreign agent and sentenced him in absentia to 3.5 years in prison, the human rights project OVD-Info* reported today, citing a court source.

Savva was also fined 70,000 rubles. The sentence was handed down taking into account the punishment for the political scientist's previous case, human rights activists reported.

"The judge heard the case under the 'foreign agent' article in a single hearing. These cases are usually heard by justices of the peace. If appealed, the sentence could be overturned due to incorrect jurisdiction," the publication stated.

According to the case file on the district court's website, Savva was found guilty under Part 2 of Article 330.1 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Violation of the procedures for the activities of a foreign agent"; carries a sentence of up to two years in prison).

The case was submitted to the court on December 30, 2025, and at the first hearing on January 21, Judge Oleg Ganchenko delivered a guilty verdict. Details of the sentence, as of 3:50 PM Moscow time on February 3, have not been published in the case file.

As a reminder, in 2014, the court sentenced Mikhail Savva to a suspended sentence after finding him guilty of embezzling a grant allocated by the Kuban administration and accepting payment for fictitious university classes. The professor pleaded not guilty. The court later commuted his suspended sentence to three years in a penal colony for violating the prison rules, and in April 2015, it was announced that Savva had been charged with fraud.

A number of human rights activists spoke out against Savva's criminal prosecution, pointing out that the professor was detained after he criticized the actions of security forces conducting inspections of NGOs in southern Russia.

In February 2015, Savva announced that he had left the country because he feared criminal prosecution. In October 2016, it became known that Ukraine and the United States granted him refugee status.

* are included in the register of foreign agents.

** Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is banned in Russia.