13 April 2026
Moscow’s Khamovnichesky district court has set a dangerous precedent in revoking three advocates’ license to practice
By Leonid Nikitinsky
Source: Novaya Gazeta
On 10 April, some forty lawyers gathered in Courtroom No. 9 at Moscow’s Khamovnichesky district court. Eight represented the interests of three absent individuals; the rest took seats in the public gallery. For some there was not enough room in the courtroom and these awaited the judge’s decision in the hallway.
The administrative case regarding the annulment of the decision by the Moscow Bar Association and the revocation of the status of its members, the advocates* Dmitry Provodin, Yuly Tai, and Aleksei Basistov, may indeed be important for the future of the Russian legal profession as a whole. The basis for the administrative lawsuit filed by the Moscow branch of the Ministry of Justice was Article 17 [2, 7] of the Law on Legal Practice and the Bar. Subparagraph 7, added to the 2002 law in April 2024, established that a Bar Association may terminate an advocate’s status if the advocate leaves for permanent residence or for a period exceeding one year outside the Russian Federation without valid reasons.
On 10 December 2025, the Moscow Bar Association rejected the Ministry of Justice’s request to revoke the status as advocates of Provodin, Tai, and Basistov. Under the Law on the Legal Profession, the Bar Association’s decision may be appealed by the advocates themselves, but not by the Ministry of Justice, for whom such a decision is final. Nevertheless, Judge Vera Fokeeva of the Khamovnichesky court accepted the suit, suspended the status of the three advocates, and, a few days later, granted the Ministry of Justice’s claim with unprecedented speed.
Meanwhile, the Moscow Bar Association conducted a detailed investigation into the reasons that had forced Provodin, Tai, and Basistov to leave the country and continue to make their return dangerous.
The ‘detective story’ is connected to the Knightsbridge Private Park residential complex, built in the mid-2010s on the site of the former Bakery No. 6 near Komsomolsky Prospekt and today consists of four high-rise buildings with luxury apartments and an internal park. We shall not delve here into the conflict over this property, but the basis for it is generally clear: one company had planned to purchase 20 apartments in this complex, but they went to another.
Against the backdrop of a smear campaign in the media against the Bartolius law firm, whose partners included the three aforementioned advocates, on 10 March 2021 an attempt was made to murder Ilya Peregudov — a former partner at the Bartolius law firm and, at that time, project manager for Knightsbridge Private Park. The attackers fractured Peregudov’s skull with a metal pipe but did not finish him off and were forced to flee when a passer-by appeared. The first person to arrive at the scene of the attack half an hour later was the advocate Yuly Tai, who gave first aid to Peregudov and took him to the hospital.
A criminal case was initially opened on charges of assault, although a tracking device was found on Peregudov’s car, indicating that the attack had been carefully planned. It took three years to have the case reclassified as attempted murder. Advocates from the Bartolius law firm managed to conduct their own investigation and identify the attackers using surveillance camera footage. Currently, according to the advocates, both the immediate perpetrators and the organizers of the attack — a total of five people — have been detained.
Meanwhile, a criminal case, which so far lacks specifics, has been opened against one of the advocates on a charge of fraud. Provodin, Basistov, and Tai believe the charge has been fabricated. In their opinion, the party that considers itself unfairly wronged in the Knightsbridge Private Park project has very powerful figures behind it. Basistov had previously left the country for health reasons, while Tai and Provodin, who remained in Russia, received threats they considered so real that they hired bodyguards until they also left the country in 2024–2025.
After conducting its own investigation (a 50-page report), the Moscow Bar Association concluded that Tai, Provodin, and Basistov have valid reasons for not wishing to return to the Russian Federation. On 10 December2025, the Moscow Bar Association denied the request by the Ministry of Justice to strip them of their status as advocates.
The Ministry of Justice has recently initiated into the State Duma bills that would allow for decisions by bar associations to be appealed in court. However, since such a law has not yet been adopted, Judge Fokeeva in her ruling was applying a future legal provision.
The materials submitted by the Ministry of Justice also contained violations of the legal protections advocates enjoy with regard to police investigations into their legal practice.
The precedent-setting significance of Judge Fokeeva’s decision lies in the fact that those advocates who have been forced to leave the country for political reasons — such as Karina Moskalenko, Ivan Pavlov, Vadim Prokhorov, Andrei Ragulin, and others — could be stripped of their status as advocates in the same manner. Of course, their own reputation is sufficient for them to provide legal advice, but if debarred they would no longer be able to submit requests or appear via video link in court. Moreover, the symbolic significance of such a revocation should not be underestimated.
* The term advocate (advokat in Russian) can be considered the equivalent of barrister in the UK or trail lawyer or litigator in the US.
Translated by Rights in Russia
