Moscow’s Basmanny District Court partially merged the sentences in two separate cases against blogger Mikhail Naki, ordering him to serve 14 years in prison in absentia. Naki will serve his sentence in a general-regime penal colony.
The ruling also took into account a previous 11-year prison sentence handed down in a case involving the dissemination of false information about the Russian Armed Forces. Naki was separately sentenced to five years in prison for calling for activities directed against Russia’s security.
Judge Konstantin Ochirov ruled that the final sentence would be 14 years following the partial merger of the sentences. The court also banned Naki for five years from activities connected with managing websites.

The Moscow branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee announced in March that criminal proceedings had been opened against Naki. The case was based on allegations that Naki had published a video containing calls for activities directed against the country’s security.
An arrest warrant in absentia has been issued for Naki, and he has been placed on a wanted list. Russia’s Justice Ministry added the blogger to its register of foreign agents in September 2022.
The court said the video at the centre of the case was published on May 7, 2024. Naki, 32, hosted programmes on politics and public affairs at Ekho Moskvy radio from 2015 to 2020; he moved to Georgia in June 2021 and later settled in Lithuania. In September 2026, his Russian-language YouTube channel ranked second among Russian-language politics and public affairs channels, with more than 80.4 million views.