Forbes journalist Sergei Mingazov has died at the age of 57, his lawyer Konstantin Bubon and journalist Dmitry Nizovtsev reported.
Mingazov had stage three cancer. He underwent two surgeries in February and March 2026 to remove a tumor in his intestine. His defense team said that by the end of June he had completed three rounds of chemotherapy with five more ahead, but the court refused to suspend the case. The next hearing had been scheduled for July 13.
Mingazov was detained in April 2024 on charges of spreading 'fakes' about the Russian military (Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). The case stemmed from three reposts in his Telegram channel 'Khabarovskaya Mingazeta' made in April 2022, which concerned events in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
In February 2025, a court in Khabarovsk fined Mingazov 700,000 rubles, though prosecutors had sought a six-year prison sentence. The prosecution appealed, and the court increased the fine to 2.5 million rubles. Prosecutors then filed another appeal, calling the sentence 'excessively lenient.' In December 2025, a cassation court sent the case back for retrial.
Mingazov was originally from Khabarovsk. He worked as a night editor at Forbes and previously contributed to Vedomosti and Kommersant, where he headed the Far Eastern bureau. During the 2020 protests in Khabarovsk, according to the outlet Faridaily, Mingazov was an indispensable help to fellow journalists.