Russia gives nine-year prison sentence to former lawmaker Ksenia Fadeyeva, one of few Navalny associates who stayed in the country

On December 29, a Russian court handed down a nine-year prison sentence to Russian politician Ksenia Fadeyeva, the former head of opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s regional office in the city of Tomsk. The court found the 31-year-old guilty of organizing an “extremist” group for her involvement with Navalny’s organization. Fadeyeva was one of a small number of Navalny associates who chose to remain in Russia after his movement was declared “extremist.” Meduza gives an overview of Fadeyeva’s career and her involvement with Vladimir Putin’s most well-known domestic opponent.

Update: Ksenia Fadeyeva was released on August 1, as part of a historic prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries. The following article was originally published on December 29, 2023.

Before she began working with Alexey Navalny, Ksenia Fadeyeva was a regional coordinator for the independent voter protection movement Golos in her hometown of Tomsk. She was also a prominent activist in the Siberian city; in 2015, for example, she staged a picket protest in support of a local independent TV station that found itself in the government’s crosshairs.

In 2017, Fadeyeva became the deputy head of Navalny’s Tomsk campaign headquarters for his planned 2018 presidential run. Later, she became the head of the regional office.

Shortly before the office began operating, unknown assailants sealed the door of Fadeyeva’s apartment shut with construction foam and damaged her car. Afterwards, she was repeatedly fined and arrested for organizing “unauthorized” protests.

Navalny was ultimately barred from joining the 2018 presidential election. Even after the vote, however, many of his regional offices, including the one in Tomsk, continued operating, devoting their efforts to investigating local corruption and regional civic issues.

In August 2020, Navalny traveled to Novosibirsk and Tomsk to help his associates film documentaries about their investigations and to support independent political candidates. One of these candidates was Ksenia Fadeyeva, who was running for the Tomsk City Duma as an independent.

On August 20, Alexey Navalny began feeling ill while on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, where Navalny was hospitalized. It later became clear that Navalny had been poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.

Three weeks later, Fadeyeva beat her opponents from the ruling United Russia party and became a deputy in the Tomsk City Duma. She was supported by the Navalny team’s Smart Vote initiative, in which they used data to advise voters on which non-United Russia candidates would be most likely to win. Andrey Fateyev, another Navalny associate, was also elected to the Tomsk parliament, while the United Russia deputies found themselves in the minority.

Fadeyeva cited two main factors for the Navalny movement’s victory in Tomsk: a high voter turnout in response to the politician’s poisoning, and the release of the Navalny team’s documentary “Tomsk held hostage by the deputies’ mafia,” which featured Navalny himself.

In June 2021, a Moscow court declared Navalny’s offices an “extremist movement.” Following the ruling, the politicians regional headquarters across the country began closing, and their employees began leaving the country. At the same time, the Russian authorities began opening felony cases against Navalny’s associates for their participation in his anti-corruption work.

Leonid Volkov, the former head of Navalny's organization, said that at this point, he and his colleagues offered to provide “any assistance” that would help Navalny’s regional coordinators get out of the country. But Ksenia Fadeyeva, he said, refused outright. “She wrote to me that she’s scared but that she’s a deputy, and she has voters to think about, she has a district, she has a responsibility — she can’t abandon her voters and her work in the Tomsk City Duma,” Volkov said.

In late December 2021, the Russian authorities searched Fadeyeva’s home in connection with “extremism” charges. Soon after, a court banned her from using the Internet, communicating with anyone besides her relatives and lawyers, and attending public events.

The court began considering the case against Fadeyeva in August 2023. The proceedings were held behind closed doors. In November, she was put on house arrest, and shortly after she was sent to a pre-trial detention facility.

Investigators allege that Fadeyeva continued participating in Navalny’s movement even after it was declared “extremist.” The independent outlet Mediazona noted that the witnesses called by the prosecution did not live in Tomsk, and that some of them did not even know Fadeyeva.

The prosecution was given nearly four months to make its case; the defense was given four days. When the defense was presenting its arguments, the judge scheduled each day to last 12 hours and did not allow Fadeyeva to eat or take breaks. At one point, an ambulance had to be called for Fadeyeva when she began feeling ill.

On December 28, prosecutors requested that Fadeyeva be sentenced to 10.5 years in prison. The following day, the court sentenced her to nine years in prison and a 500,000-ruble ($5,555) fine.

“Ksenia Fadeyeva is one of the best, most honest people I know. Those who jailed her will burn in hell,” Leonid Volkov wrote on social media.