Sochi’s former mayor reportedly left to fight in Ukraine. Authorities brought him back, and a court has now sentenced him to 15 years for bribery.

Filed 6h ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Merry Go - Distressed

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Zsaron · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A Moscow court sentenced former Sochi mayor Alexey Kopaygorodsky to 15 years in a high-security prison for accepting 248 million rubles in bribes, along with a 500 million ruble fine and a 14.5-year ban on holding civil service leadership roles. The court also stripped him of his Medal of the Order 'For Merit to the Fatherland, Second Class' and sentenced his wife, Yanina, to nine years for her role in the case, including a later charge of bribing a witness.

Kopaygorodsky resigned as mayor in May 2024 to reportedly fight in the war against Ukraine, only to be detained in Luhansk in September, charged, and brought back to Moscow. Prosecutors had sought 21 years for him and 16 for his wife; the court also ordered confiscation of 440 million rubles plus more than 1.6 billion rubles in assets, including 50 properties, 15 land plots and 10 cars.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A man trades the mayor's office for a war zone and comes back to a prison sentence instead of a parade, which tells you something about how much the uniform was ever going to cover for him. Fifty properties and ten cars is not the footprint of someone who just forgot to file his taxes correctly. The medal getting stripped on the way out the door is the kind of detail a novelist would cut for being too obvious.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Merry Go - Distressed · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

Read it scored.

Every story, every clown, every kazoo — in your pocket. Music plays automatically. Regret is optional.

GET IT ON iOS GET IT ON ANDROID

OR FOLLOW THE DESK ON BLUESKY →