Russian Court Sentences Former Sochi Mayor to 15 Years for Corruption

A Moscow court has sentenced Alexei Kopaygorodsky, the former mayor of the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, to 15 years in a maximum-security prison on corruption charges, Russian state media reported Monday, citing the Prosecutor General's Office.

Kopaygorodsky, 41, led Sochi from September 2019 until May 2024, when he suddenly stepped down, saying he was moving to a federal position. When that move never happened, he instead joined a volunteer battalion fighting in Ukraine. He was detained in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region in September 2024 and brought back to Moscow to face trial.

Prosecutors had sought a 21-year sentence for him and 16 years for his wife, Yanina Kopaygorodskaya. The Meshchansky District Court ultimately convicted Kopaygorodsky of accepting large bribes, embezzling municipal property and laundering illegally obtained funds. His wife was sentenced to 10 years as an accomplice, while her assistant, Alexander Pasunko, received a fine of 190,000 rubles (about $2,200).

Heavy fines and bans

Both Kopaygorodsky and his wife were ordered to pay fines of roughly half a billion rubles (about $5.9 million) each. The former mayor was also stripped of a state award, barred from holding public administrative positions for 14.5 years, and will face an additional three years of restrictions after completing his prison term.

According to prosecutors, Kopaygorodsky embezzled two municipal land plots and hid their origins, and accepted more than 319 million rubles (about $3.7 million) in bribes from businesspeople and developers between 2022 and 2024 in exchange for favorable treatment and protection. His wife was additionally accused of pressuring one witness into giving false testimony and bribing another, through Pasunko, with half a million rubles while under house arrest. Both defendants denied all charges.

Earlier this year, in January, a court in Sochi had already seized family assets worth more than 1.6 billion rubles (about $18.8 million). Kopaygorodsky is at least the tenth current or former senior official in the Krasnodar region to face criminal prosecution since Veniamin Kondratyev became regional governor in 2015.