On October 22, 2026, Russia’s Second Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction upheld the prison sentences of Antonina Favorskaya, Artyom Kriger, Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin. Each had been sentenced to five years and six months in prison for allegedly participating in an “extremist community” that the authorities linked to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, or FBK, founded by the late opposition politician Alexei Navalny. Once again, the hearing was closed to the public and the press. Observers were admitted only to hear the ruling. According to Current Time, Favorskaya responded that the judges had neither honour nor conscience. Behind the single criminal case lie four distinct careers, families and forms of journalism that the Russian state has treated as grounds for imprisonment.
Four different paths into journalism
Antonina Favorskaya, whose legal surname is Kravtsova, reported for the independent outlet SOTAvision. She covered political trials, closely followed the proceedings against Navalny and travelled to the penal colonies where he was held. After his death in February 2024, she documented events surrounding his funeral. Her work exemplified an essential role of the press: being present when the public cannot enter a courtroom or a prison, recording what happens and giving those events an independent witness.
Artyom Kriger also worked for SOTAvision, livestreaming court proceedings, interviewing people on the street and covering protests and conversations with politicians. He belonged to a generation of reporters whose work travelled directly from a smartphone camera to viewers online. His uncle Mikhail Kriger, a Moscow civic activist, is also serving a prison sentence in a politically motivated case. Two members of the same family have therefore lost their freedom after years of public opposition to political repression.
Konstantin Gabov is a video producer and freelance journalist who has worked with international news organisations, including Reuters. Sergey Karelin is a freelance videographer who has worked for Associated Press and Deutsche Welle. Their jobs were less about writing signed opinion columns than filming and producing footage that other newsrooms use to show audiences what happened. Viewers often know the subject of a video report without knowing the name of the person behind the camera.
When a reporting assignment becomes a criminal charge
Favorskaya was detained on March 17, 2024, after visiting Navalny’s grave. She was initially given ten days of administrative detention, then arrested in the criminal investigation on March 27. By late April, officers had detained Gabov in Moscow and Karelin in the northern Murmansk region. Kriger was arrested in June. The separate investigations were combined, and the trial of the four journalists began at Moscow’s Nagatinsky District Court on October 2, 2024.
Investigators alleged that footage and reports prepared by the journalists had appeared on channels associated with FBK and Navalny LIVE, and that the journalists therefore took part in a banned extremist community. The charge was brought under Part 2 of Article 282.1 of the Russian Criminal Code. All four denied guilt. The central human rights concern is clear: ordinary journalistic activity was presented as participation in a political organisation. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it could not even establish exactly which videos Gabov and Karelin were accused of producing.
The authorities excluded the public from much of the trial. Media reporting on the journalists and limited access to court sessions helped document their persecution but did not provide a complete public account of the evidence. On April 15, 2025, the Nagatinsky court sentenced each journalist to five and a half years in a general-regime penal colony and imposed a three-year ban on posting material online after release. Moscow City Court upheld the judgments on December 4. The October 22, 2026, cassation ruling left the sentences intact again.
Favorskaya: From the courtroom to disciplinary isolation
In a letter, Favorskaya said investigators accused her not only of filming Navalny’s court appearances but also of helping organise his funeral. FBK representatives said she had not published materials on the foundation’s channels. Much of Favorskaya’s reporting involved going to places where independent observers were especially important: prison colonies, court corridors and the cemetery where people gathered to mourn Navalny.
By summer 2026, she was serving her sentence at Penal Colony No. 3 in Russia’s Kostroma region. Prison officials repeatedly placed her in a disciplinary isolation cell after she refused to work as a seamstress. By September 11, according to defence lawyers and independent outlets, she had spent more than 82 days in such confinement in total. The number reflects a series of disciplinary penalties, not necessarily one uninterrupted period. Around the October 22 hearing, lawyers again raised concerns about the restrictions imposed on her. FACTUM has covered her personal case and prison conditions in a separate profile.
Kriger: Prison transfers and plans for a future in journalism
Kriger was 23 when he lost his freedom. In April 2026, Novaya Gazeta published a letter written after he had travelled for 11 days through detention facilities, including a stop in Rzhev, before arriving at Penal Colony No. 4 in Tver region. He said he had chosen not to leave Russia and was determined to defend his beliefs, even though imprisonment had proved far more difficult than he could have imagined. Rather than surrendering his identity to a prison number, he described exercising, trying to stay physically fit and hoping to become a prominent journalist again after his release.
Kriger’s father Pavel had attended hearings and described overcrowded detention conditions during his son’s earlier imprisonment in Moscow. His uncle Mikhail is held in another penal colony. Their story shows that the effects of political prosecution extend beyond the people named in court documents: years of separation, journeys to distant prisons and the constant work of preserving relationships across prison walls.
Gabov: Freelance video work and the fight for decent conditions
Gabov worked as a camera operator and producer for different editorial clients. CPJ reported that investigators linked him to footage allegedly prepared for the Navalny LIVE project. The freelance nature of his work is crucial to understanding the case. Filming an interview or editing a video for a particular outlet does not, by itself, make a journalist a member of the political organisation associated with the outlet.
In letters from Moscow detention centres, Gabov described overcrowded cells and problems with bedding. Current Time also reported difficulties in obtaining necessary medication while he was in custody. On October 22, 2026, reports citing lawyers said he was being held in disciplinary isolation. The reason for that punishment, its duration and his precise present location require separate confirmation. Earlier descriptions of pretrial detention should not be passed off as verified accounts of his current prison conditions.
Karelin: Letters to his daughter and stories of the future
Before his arrest, Sergey Karelin worked as a freelance videographer for international news organisations. After his detention in Murmansk region in April 2024, he was transferred to Moscow. In October 2025, Novaya Gazeta published a letter he wrote from the Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial detention centre. He described answering letters, taking short walks in the prison yard, playing chess and reading to give structure to days that otherwise blurred into one another.
A central theme of his correspondence was his daughter. Karelin said he had stopped writing new fairy tales for her but continued to draw pictures of adventures they would experience together after his release. His sister Olga spoke about the friends and volunteers who sent postcards and mathematical puzzles from different countries. For the family, those messages were a way of ensuring that his child could continue to know him as a father, not just as someone serving a prison sentence.
The human rights assessment
Memorial’s political prisoners support project recognises all four journalists as political prisoners. It regards the prosecutions as punishment for legitimate professional work and argues that the ban on a political organisation cannot automatically turn filming, interviews and reporting into criminal participation in an extremist group. In February 2026, Amnesty International likewise demanded their immediate and unconditional release and the quashing of their convictions. It placed the cases within the wider repression of people associated with Navalny and those who documented his activities.
Freedom of expression includes the right to gather and publish information about events of public interest, while the right to a fair trial requires meaningful safeguards and scrutiny. Closed hearings prevented the public from seeing how reporting for independent outlets was legally characterised as membership in a prohibited organisation. Journalists do not have to endorse the people they interview or share the political views of those who use their footage. Criminal prosecution over ordinary reporting has consequences for every journalist covering courts, protests and political opponents.
Where the four journalists stand on October 22, 2026
The confirmed outcome is that all four remain sentenced to five years and six months, and the cassation court has refused to change those judgments. Favorskaya’s latest confirmed detention facility is Penal Colony No. 3 in Kostroma region. Kriger described being held at Penal Colony No. 4 in Tver region in spring 2026. Detention-centre addresses given for Gabov and Karelin in older reports may no longer be current. Details of disciplinary punishment, health and opportunities to contact relatives should be checked against the latest information from defence lawyers and rights organisations.
These four journalists did not belong to the same newsroom or necessarily share the same political views. What connected them was the work of documenting events and giving people a record of what happened. Years of their lives have been taken away through prosecutions arising from that work. The latest cassation judgment leaves the punishments in place, but it does not settle the human rights questions their cases continue to raise.