2 April 2026
What compels a judge to issue draconian sentences? Novaya gazeta investigated a series of rulings made by now-retired judge of the Istrinsky Town Court, Grigoryev.
by Leonid Nikitinsky
Source: Novaya gazeta
Moscow Regional Court overturned the decision to remand Aliya Galitskaya, accused of extorting money from her ex-husband, in custody. But the reversal came too late. Behind bars, Aliya took her own life.
After her death, Novaya gazeta spoke with Judge Fyodor Grigoryev, who had sent Galitskaya to the remand prison. The very candid interview, published on our website, caused a public outcry. Several people, who had also dealt with the same judge, reached out to us.
The motives behind the judge’s candour remain unclear to us. It’s as though he was justifying his decision regarding Galitskaya – but to whom? To his colleagues, his superiors, his own conscience, or to ‘the whole world’? Was this the only decision (if we are to believe Grigoryev) made under pressure from the Moscow Regional Court?
We analysed two further cases that were handled by this judge, which were brought to us by the defendants’ representatives. But first, let’s briefly revisit the interview – with some omissions.
‘Judges Speak in Euphemisms’
‘I graduated from the Moscow State University Faculty of Law in 2004 and started working at the Moscow Regional Court, first as a consultant and then as a judge’s assistant. In 2009, I defended my PhD thesis, and in 2010 I passed the qualification exam and took the position of judge at the Istrinsky Twon Court. Over these 15 years, I was nominated for ‘Judge of the Year’, issued dozens of acquittals, including in an unproven murder case, and almost none of of them were overturned.
In 2019, Aleksei Sergeyevich Kharlamov took over as head of the Moscow Regional Court, having moved from the Supreme Court, where he had never personally handled first instance cases. During his tenure, acquittals were no longer issued; this was the directive. Since December 2024, the Istrinsky Court has been headed by Irina Aleksandrovna Putynets.
Before speaking about Galitskaya’s case, I should say that on 29 September last year I had been reviewing documents concerning pre-trial conditions in the case of one Vasilyeva. The alleged crime had taken place two years earlier. The prosecution had demanded that she be remanded in custody, but I considered bail of 3 million roubles with additional restrictions to be sufficient.
On October 15, the Moscow Regional Court overturned my ruling, ordered remanding in custody, and issued a private ruling against me, stating that I had committed a disciplinary offence and violated the Code of Judicial Ethics. For this, on January 23, 2026, the Higher Qualification Board of Judges issued me a warning…
— Had your decisions on pre-trial conditions been overturned before?
— Of course, it’s happened. It’s a normal process, but it doesn’t constitute a violation of judicial ethics unless there is some kind of outside interest involved. If an investigator petitioning for certain pre-trial conditions has doubts, they may come and consult. This has happened more than once, and in such cases I warned that detention wasn’t warranted, and suggested they ask for, say, house arrest instead.
— But doesn’t such consultation violate the law?
— Of course not, this is also a normal process (is it really? – L. N.).
Now, as for Galitskaya. I learned that such a case had been submitted to the court on 6 February, sometime after lunch. I was the duty judge that day, but the file did not come to me immediately; it was first reviewed by Judge Irina Kukushkina.
— Is she the deputy chair?
— No, she’s an ordinary judge, she’s young. Putynets established a procedure whereby all documents on pre-trial conditions first go to Kukushkina, who then brings them to the duty judge. Handing me Galitskaya’s case file, she said: ‘Be careful!’ Judges speak in euphemisms, but then she said directly that Galitskaya’s detention had been agreed with the chair of the regional court. Putynets had spoken with him – she once worked as his assistant. But I cannot call him to clarify, and Kukushkina doesn’t have his number either.
— But that doesn’t happen in every case, does it?
— Of course not. If a case isn’t high-profile, why would the leadership get involved? I flipped through the file in front of Kukushkina; it contained a record of the victim’s interrogation and a copy of a Republic of Vanuatu passport in the name of Aliya Galitskaya; according to her she also had a Romanian passport. That, of course, was an argument in favour of ordering detention, but I was troubled by the fact that the record of Galitsky’s interrogation was dated 2024. I asked Kukushkina whether we might still be looking at a bail of around twenty million, to which she told me pointedly: ‘Be careful! You already have a disciplinary record over pre-trial conditions.’ I took it as a threat.
I do not absolve myself of blame for not displaying firmness. But who could have imagined that she would take her own life? On the other hand, if I had released her and she had fled to her Vanuatu or wherever, I would have suffered even more consequences.
I learned that Galitskaya had committed suicide from Telegram channels, and of course it was a shock to me. On 9 February, Putynets and I were summoned to the Supreme Court. The weather was so nice – I said to her: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just go for a walk right now instead of being called in for a dressing-down…’ She said: ‘You know what? Don’t say anything about Kharlamov, say it was your own decision. Everything will be sorted out somehow.’ At the Supreme Court, we were spoken to in the HR department by two people responsible for personnel recruitment. I said exactly what Putynets had asked me to say, and they let us go.
— Can you prove this in any way?
— Only if she also tells the truth.
We thought we were in the clear, but on 11 February, a Wednesday, Irina Aleksandrovna [Putynets] announced that she was stepping down as chair and would remain an ordinary judge. Then on Friday, 13 February, I received a text message from her: ‘I spoke with the leadership; it’s in your best interest to resign before the issue of sanctions is decided.’
I received another disciplinary penalty and my resignation request was granted, so for now I retain the status of a retired judge. But Galitskaya’s lawyers may appeal to the Qualification Board with demands to strip me of my judicial status. Then instead of the lifetime allowances I have honestly earned, I’d be left with a black mark.
— Reports by TASS and Interfax on February 19 said that the story of the suicide ‘outraged’ the сhair of the Supreme Court, Igor Krasnov. This would mean that he was personally involved. But it seems that Krasnov doesn’t know all the details of this story?
— Of course he doesn’t – I didn’t tell the truth when we were summoned to the Supreme Court. That’s how everything was presented to Krasnov. And as a result, I was made the scapegoat: I alone am guilty of Galitskaya’s death, while Kharlamov, Putynets, and Kukushkina have nothing to do with it. I want everyone to know the truth.
I have 22 years of professional experience, including 15 years as a judge. I’m 43, I liked my job, and I wasn’t planning to resign. Be that as it may, I’ll go into teaching. But I don’t want students pointing at me saying: ‘That’s the one…’
- ‘The Morkovkina Case’
Veronika Morkovkina separated from her husband, Artem Mitшurin, and left Istra, where she had lived with him, to move into her own house in the Vsevolozhsky district in Leningrad region. In August 2023, in central St. Petersburg, their three-year-old son was kidnapped by his father and several accompanying men.
Morkovkina turned to the ‘Defenders of Childhood’ foundation, headed by Aleksandra Marova, who agreed to take her case to court. In January 2024, the Vsevolozhsky district court ruled that the child should live with his mother, but at that time the father was in hiding at an unregistered address. In April 2024, law enforcement authorities located Mitiurin and returned the child to Morkovkina.
On 1 May 2025, Mityurin’s car went up in flames in Istra, and based on his complaint, a criminal case was opened for extortion of 5 million roubles and the deliberate destruction of property. In May, Andrei Sidnev, an acquaintance of Morkovkina and Marova, was taken into custody, and on 10 June Morkovkina was herself remanded in custody, while the child was once again returned to his father.
As evidence of Mordovkina’s guilt, the case includes transcripts of conversations between Morkovkina and her ex-husband, as well as with Sidnev, but they contain nothing that could be unambiguously interpreted as extortion.
In the absence of evidence, Morkovkina’s detention was repeatedly extended, including by Judge Grigoryev. Only after Galitskaya’s suicide did the prosecutor’s office decide to return the criminal case to the investigative authorities, and the pre-trial conditions were changed to house arrest.
Marova continues to work on the case as Morkovkina’s representative and, after reading the interview with Judge Grigoryev, contacted Novaya. The Morkovkina case indeed resembles the Galitskaya case, although here the issue is not the division of property, but the child’s place of residence.
2. Alfa Bank against Shumilin
Novaya gazeta first learned of Konstantin Shumilin’s case from his father, Aleksandr Shumilin, a colleague of ours. The case was heard and a guilty verdict handed down by the same Judge Grigoryev.
According to Shumilin Sr., the judge allegedly complained to the defence attorneys—outside the formal proceedings—about pressure from the Moscow Regional Court and the prosecutor’s office.
Since 2011, Konstantin Shumilin had headed the Russian division of the Ambermanor group of companies, a unique structure consisting of numerous foreign and Russian companies that own non-core assets of Alfa Group. Prior to the Shumilin case, Alfa preferred not to publicize its connection with Ambermanor and did not include this group of companies in its financial reports.
In the spring of 2021, Shumilin, according to his own account, allegedly refused to carry out another directive from Alfa Group management to cash out a large sum of money. He intended to resign of his own accord, but possessed information that was sensitive for Alfa, something which, in his opinion, was the real reason for the criminal case brought against him and the fact that he was remanded in custody. In statements from the remand prison, he now says many different things, but the value of information from a detainee in a fraud case is low.
Among Ambermanor’s Russian entities was Istrinskie Zemli LLC, which owned three land plots with a total area of six hectares. These plots incurred losses as a result of the need to pay taxes and partially cultivate them, but they were not sold at the price agreed upon by Alfa. Shumilin ordered an appraisal of the land and, in December 2020, sold the plots at auction to a certain real estate agent at the price indicated by the appraiser: 15,000 roubles per 100 square metres, for a total of 90 million roubles.
On 25 September 2021, Investigator Y.V. Dementyev of the Investigative Department of the Istra Police Department issued a ruling denying Alfa Group’s request to open a criminal case, stating that a commercial dispute was involved and that the matter should be resolved through the civil courts. In October, following a complaint by the defence, Istra Town Court overturned the decision not to open a criminal case, but in December the case was heard once again.
On 21 January 2022, a hearing was held at Istra Town Court to determine pretrial conditions for Shumilin on charges of fraud. The investigative authorities requested house arrest, but the prosecutor who spoke next demanded custody, despite Shumilin having a young child and a sick wife dependent on him. After consulting with her superiors, the investigator also requested custody. Since then, Shumilin has not left various detention centres for four years and two months.
During the initial interrogations of the defendant and witnesses, the investigative authorities suggested that Shumilin, in collusion with a real estate agent, sold the disputed plots to himself, that is, he embezzled them through fraud. However, the conspiracy could not be proven, and then an expert assessment appeared in the case, according to which the total price of the plots at the time of sale was not 90 million roubles, but 336 million roubles. Any valuation is debatable and depends on the methodology; the expert assessment was conducted by a firm controlled by Alfa Group, but what is important here is that the subject of the ‘theft’ in the second stage of the investigation was not the plots themselves, but the difference in their price.
In such a case, one can no longer speak of fraud as the unlawful seizure of property through deception. The realtor paid Istrinskie Zemli LLC in full. Under these circumstances, the situation constitutes either a civil dispute (as investigator Dementyev noted) or, at most, a violation of Article 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: ‘Causing loss of property through deception or abuse of trust’ (maximum penalty—up to two years’ imprisonment).
In September 2022, the case was sent to court, but Judge Ilyas Alimov returned it to the prosecutor’s office to address deficiencies. Judge Grigoryev received Shumilin’s case in October 2022, found no deficiencies in it, and handed down a guilty verdict on 18 May 2023: six years of imprisonment.
Konstantin Shumilin is not a hero of Novaya gazeta. In fact, he admits that he participated in very strange schemes that the leadership of Alfa Group did not dare to bring to light, limiting themselves to the story of the ‘Istra lands.’
The value of this land deal is likely incomparable to the sums that were laundered and transferred abroad through the Ambermanor group of companies. Shumilin could confirm this—if he weren’t sitting in a remand prison, where a number of other criminal cases have been brought against him.
The Mechanism of Dehumanization
Aliya Galitskaya’s lawyer, Dmitry Emelyanov, parted ways with her at the Istra police cells on 8 February 8 at around 5 p.m. According to him, she was depressed, as anyone would be upon first losing their freedom, but they discussed further procedural steps; Galitskaya asked him to convey her instructions regarding her business to her acquaintances.
Nothing indicated that she was planning to take her own life; nevertheless, her suicide note supports this version of events. What drove Galitskaya to make such a decision? Likely, a lack of faith in judicial justice and the realization that, from the moment of her arrest, her fate had already been sealed for years to come.
In my book Ponyatiya [Understandings], recently published by Novaya gazeta, there is a chapter on ‘stamps applied with invisible ink.’ Such cases include, first, those with a political component, where judges themselves understand what decisions their superiors expect from them. Second, these are cases in which there are implicit signs of a commercial ‘order,’ and in such cases, as in the Galitskaya case (if Judge Grigoryev is to be believed), ‘telephone law’ applies.
We have no access to other cases handled by Judge Grigoryev, but in the Morkovkina and Shumilin cases, the decisions he made speak for themselves in the context of their facts. What can be said about Judge Grigoryev based on the available information? He is, perhaps, the most ordinary and even highly competent career judge, to whom, as far as we know, no cases with a political component had been assigned. In other cases, however, he acted within the framework of a traditional prosecutorial bias and handed down precisely the rulings that were expected of him.
After learning about the Morkovkina case following the interview, I called Grigoryev back, but he didn’t even recall extending the pre-trial custody for a woman with a child who had such a memorable surname and given the evidence of her guilt. In other words, for the judge, this is routine; he does not see the human being sitting before him in the dock.
The more important and interesting question is the mechanism behind this dehumanization of judges (as well as investigators and prosecutors), and we are entitled to draw some conclusions about it.
After recording the interview with Grigoryev, I turned off the recorder and asked permission to ask him a few more general questions. He agreed, and I asked him about the Berkovich and Petriychuk case, and he asked back, ‘What case is that? I haven’t heard of it…’
It turns out you can work as a judge without taking much interest in what’s happening in the next courtroom. It’s less trouble that way.
Grigoryev’s interview was not addressed to the readers of Novaya gazeta or even to Supreme Court Chief Justice Krasnov, who played a role in his fate. Grigoryev explains what happened to people just like him, within his own circle. In exactly the same way, other judges justify their most savage sentences—their comrades will understand, and they simply don’t care about anyone else. And we all fall into the category of ‘everyone else’ here, the uninitiated.
The circle to which Grigoryev is accountable does not even include the chair of the Moscow Regional Court, let alone the Supreme Court. It consists of the successive chairs of the district courts of Moscow and Moscow Region, judges, police operatives and investigators, and prosecutors. Within this circle, they visit each other’s homes, drink, speak candidly, befriend one another, start romances, marry, and devour one another—and outsiders have no access here.
It is this insularity and isolation of ‘the courts and law enforcement agencies’ (as the phrase went in the more candid Soviet era) that renders the judicial system unaccountable to society and, in its current form, fatally unreformable.
Translated by Annabel Pedgley and Simon Cosgrove
