Kaliningrad lawyer who once defended Russians accused of secretly aiding foreign states now faces that same charge, says she nearly died in jail

Maria Bontsler, a lawyer in Kaliningrad who once represented defendants in politically sensitive cases, has become one herself. She was arrested in late May 2025 on accusations of secretly cooperating with a foreign state — the same charge she once defended others against. She has since been held at Kaliningrad's SIZO-1 pretrial detention center, where both she and her lawyer say she has come under pressure.

Her defense attorney said on June 30, 2026, that Bontsler had nearly died in custody days earlier, the result, he said, of a "mix-up in her prescribed medications." A court denied the defense's request to transfer her to a hospital. According to OVD-Info, a human rights monitoring group, Bontsler has been diagnosed with hypertensive heart disease, a condition accompanied by spikes in blood pressure and a high risk of stroke.

On Thursday, July 2, 2026, Bontsler addressed a court by video link during a hearing on her lawsuit against the Kaliningrad Regional Clinical Hospital and SIZO-1 over her medical treatment and confinement conditions. She described her health and daily life in the detention center.

She said she lay in her cell, quietly dying. To cool down, she soaked a sheet in water and wrapped herself in it five times a day, and it dried out almost instantly. The temperature in the cell topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) — the fifth floor, right under a scorching roof. She stated that on the 29th she nearly died, and her heart stopped several times. She was taken to the medical unit and then, at her request, to the shower, where standing under cold water for half an hour helped. That night, someone left the ventilation on, which she believes saved her life.