11 February 2026
by Leonid Nikitinsky
The purge of the judiciary has become systematic, though how this system chooses its victims remains unclear
Source: Novaya Gazeta
Journalists have noted with interest a decision emerging from the latest session of the High Qualification Collegium of Judges (HQCJ) to hand over to the Prosecutor General’s Office case files on so-called anti-corruption lawsuits against two judges of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court: the chair of the Administrative Board, Viktor Fomin, and Judge Vyacheslav Sapega.
The legal action relates to a significant overspend, and in the matter no further proof is needed. Last year, it was the Prosecutor General’s Office itself that filed similar, sensational and (I kid you not) “anti-corruption” lawsuits against the President of the Council of Judges, Viktor Momotov, and the presidents of the Krasnodar Regional Court and the Supreme Court of Adygea, and now the action is being brought by the HQCJ. The total amount does not change when you reorder the terms. Still, this new arrangement goes to show that the initiative for the purge is coming not from Bolshaya Dmitrovka, where Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov used to sit, but from Povarskaya, where he presides now.
The following detail adds a certain twist to Fomin’s case: he petitioned the HQCJ for a recommendation to the post of Deputy President of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court. Instead, he got a “black mark” in the form of a list of all properties and cars owned by him and his relatives. This means not only are we not clear on how the system selects its victims, but the victims themselves do not realise, until the very last moment, that ‘they have already come for them’.
Meanwhile, Fomin is not alone in having his promotion request denied by the HQCJ – in December, half a dozen other judges were turned down. They included contenders for the position of chair of the Kaluga Regional Court and for senior positions in the regional courts of Stavropol and Yaroslavl, and in the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria, amongst others.
Amid the scandal surrounding the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court, news that the HQCJ had just ‘cancelled the resignation’ of the former President of the Supreme Court of Adygea, Aslan Trakhov, went unnoticed. Similarly, late last year, the HQCJ stripped the former president of the Krasnodar Regional Court, Aleksandr Krasnov, of his status. This means that criminal cases against these two can be brought under general legal proceedings, i.e. their status as judges no longer affords them protection. This is not yet confirmed, however.
It is unlikely that the investigations into the abovementioned judges began only last autumn, when Krasnov took up the post of chair of the Supreme Court. Rather, case files containing corruption allegations against various judges have long been stored away in regional FSB office safes; it is just a matter of acting on them. The task of the secret services is not to initiate criminal cases, but to supply information and maintain control over the system. Krasnov had sufficient clout to force the FSB to bring some of the existing files to light.
In all of the above cases, we see the same pattern:
- “anti-corruption” lawsuits are brought by the Prosecutor General’s Office that shine a light on certain property information about which was until then kept in safes;
- forfeiture of the property to the state through the courts, in so doing revealing further details;
- deprivation of status through the HQCJ; and
- the threat of criminal prosecution (though it has not come to that yet).
The close ties between the chairs of courts in different regions and the geographic spread of the “anti-corruption” lawsuits already filed suggest that they could well be “dug up” absolutely anywhere. The choice of a particular court may be decided by various factors, including subjective ones, like the desire of the new chair of the Supreme Court to install loyal staff in key positions to head up regional courts.
Translated by Lindsay Munford
