Moscow mathematician jailed 3.5 years for donating £30 to Navalny's FBK

Andrei Dymov, an associate professor at Russia's Higher School of Economics in Moscow, has been sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony for donating 3,500 rubles to Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation. Russian authorities classified the donation as 'financing extremism'.

A Moscow court has sentenced Andrei Dymov, an associate professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), to three and a half years in a penal colony after prosecutors argued that a small charitable donation amounted to financing an extremist organisation.

The charge stemmed from Dymov's donation of 3,500 rubles — roughly 35 euros — to the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), the organisation established by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Russian authorities designated the FBK as an extremist organisation in 2021, making any financial support to the group a criminal offence.

Dymov had been working as a mathematician and academic at one of Russia's most prestigious universities before his arrest. The case has drawn attention as an example of the sweeping use of extremism laws against ordinary citizens who made donations before or shortly after the FBK's designation.

The sentence highlights the increasingly severe legal consequences facing Russians who have any connection to opposition structures. Critics and human rights observers argue that convictions over minimal donations represent a deliberate strategy to suppress dissent through fear rather than address any genuine security threat.