What to Do When a Relative Is Arrested or Convicted in Russia: A Legal Guide for Families Abroad



Discovering that a family member has been taken into custody, charged with a crime, or convicted in Russia can be frightening and overwhelming - all the more so when you are in another country far from Russia, have little or no knowledge of Russian, and are receiving incomplete or conflicting information. The criminal justice process in Russia is not always easy to understand even for local residents; for relatives living overseas, the language barrier, physical distance, and unfamiliar procedures make the situation considerably more complicated.
This step-by-step guide, prepared by the criminal defence lawyers of Yalanzhi & Partners in Moscow, sets out what actually happens at each stage of a Russian criminal case, what time limits families need to know, which mistakes cost families the most, and what legal options may realistically remain available - even after a conviction has been entered.

First step: establish the facts before discussing strategy

Before deciding what legal steps to take, the family must establish several essential facts: where the person is being held, which investigative body is handling the case, what criminal offence the person is suspected or accused of committing, whether the person has been formally charged, whether a court has ordered pre-trial detention, and whether the person already has a defence lawyer, whether appointed by the state or retained privately. For foreign nationals, there are additional issues to clarify around translation and interpretation, consular assistance, and contact with relatives. The sooner an independent criminal defence attorney reviews the situation, the greater the range of legal options that may still be available. Work done while the case is still under investigation - objections raised, evidence challenged, mitigating circumstances placed on the record - often becomes essential when the case reaches appellate review. This is what defence during the investigation is intended to achieve: addressing the current case while ensuring that important defence arguments are preserved for the future.

Criminal charges commonly faced by foreign nationals

From our experience with criminal cases involving foreign nationals, foreign citizens in Russia are most frequently prosecuted under a recognisable set of provisions of the Russian Criminal Code. These frequently involve Article 228 and Article 228.1 (drug possession and trafficking), Article 229.1 (smuggling of narcotic substances, including cases arising at airports), Article 159 (fraud), Articles 111 and 112 (intentional bodily harm), Articles 131 and 132 (sexual offences), Article 105 (homicide), and Article 322 (unlawful crossing of the state border). The evidentiary issues and relevant appellate decisions vary considerably from one category to another, which can significantly affect the legal strategy. You can read more about our work in these matters: defence against criminal charges.

The trial: why the first-instance record decides the appeal

The statistical rate of acquittal at first instance in Russia is extremely low. Families should treat this information as a reason for careful planning rather than hopelessness: in the Russian system, review proceedings before appellate and cassation courts can become critically important. And those courts rely heavily on the written case record. If important mitigating factors were not formally recorded, if the defence failed to challenge whether crucial evidence was admissible, if the defence position on legal classification was never stated - raising these points later becomes far harder. A properly structured defence at trial therefore must pursue two objectives at the same time: working toward the immediate result while building a strong foundation for appellate proceedings.

After the verdict: deadlines and stages

A conviction is not the end of the legal road. Russian law provides a structured sequence of review mechanisms. An appellate appeal must be filed within 15 days of the judgment under Article 389.4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure; for a defendant in custody, the period is calculated from the date on which the judgment is formally delivered to them. Importantly, on a defence appeal, the court cannot worsen the convicted person's position - the law prohibits it - so a defence appeal does not, by itself, expose the convicted person to a harsher outcome. Once the conviction becomes legally effective, a cassation appeal is available: the initial mandatory stage of cassation review must be sought within the six-month statutory period, while further review - including a petition to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation - may remain available without a rigid filing deadline where the requested outcome would benefit the convicted person. There are cases in which convictions are changed or set aside years after entering into legal force when the defence establishes a material breach of criminal or procedural law. A procedural deadline that has already expired, if there were valid grounds for the delay, can also be restored by the court.

How Yalanzhi & Partners evaluates a case - before asking for any fee



Our work on post-conviction cases starts with one essential step: with a careful review of the documents, not assurances about the outcome. We ask the family to send the text of the judgment and, if appeal or cassation proceedings have already occurred, the appellate and cassation rulings - readable scans or photographs are sufficient for the initial review. The text is transferred into a searchable format and checked against our internal database of 136,000 Russian criminal cases in which sentences were amended or reduced, or judgments were set aside, indexed by charge, factual pattern, type of violation, region, and court level.
Our lawyers then examine the cases identified by the search and determine whether established judicial practice realistically supports a challenge. This preliminary evaluation is carried out free of charge, and in roughly eight out of ten cases our assessment is that the prospects are weak - the judgment is free from an identifiable substantial violation, or the available court practice is contradictory. Families abroad are especially vulnerable to people selling hope; we would rather decline a case than sell false hope. When grounds do exist, the client is shown before signing an agreement which court decisions will support the defence.

Serving a prison sentence: parole and a milder punishment

For those currently serving a prison sentence, the law provides two further mechanisms: conditional early release (early release on parole, Article 79 of the Criminal Code) and replacement of the remaining sentence with a milder punishment under Article 80, including transfer to a correctional centre. Eligibility depends on the seriousness and legal category of the offence together with the proportion of the sentence completed; preparation - conduct records, employment, restitution, family circumstances - matters enormously and should start early. A detailed explanation of these mechanisms can be found here: parole and sentence commutation.

Working with families abroad without requiring travel

Our practice is designed to work effectively with clients and families overseas: documents are shared securely in electronic form, and court representation in regional appellate and cassation courts is arranged via court video conferencing - a procedure recognised within the Russian court system. When a case reaches the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, our lawyers attend in person: the Court is located in Moscow, where our Moscow office is situated. Where physical representation before a regional court is necessary or preferred, we work with verified local counsel while strategy and drafting remain with our team.
Just as importantly, you will know what is happening and why. We make sure families can communicate with us in their own language, and our written case updates use straightforward language instead of unnecessary legal jargon: what has been submitted, what the court has ruled, what happens next and when. A literal translation of procedural terminology is not the same as understanding the case; a clear explanation is. For families monitoring proceedings from abroad, that distinction is an essential part of effective legal support.

What families should be cautious about

Be extremely careful with anyone who claims that a particular court result is certain, claims to have "the right connections", or insists on urgent payment while telling you not to discuss the matter with others. No lawyer can give a legitimate guarantee of a court's future decision, and attempting to pay for supposed influence can create serious legal risks for the family. A professional defence lawyer provides legal analysis, a reasoned strategy, and documented professional work - and should have no difficulty explaining the legal grounds they see and identifying the person who will actually handle the case.

The first practical step: send the documents

If your partner or another person close to you has been detained, prosecuted, or convicted in Russia, do not delay seeking an assessment until every document from the case has been collected. Send any relevant court documents already in your possession - even the judgment by itself can provide substantial information - for a free and confidential initial assessment at lawyersinrussia.com. The assessment may reveal strong legal grounds for intervention, or it may show that there is little realistic scope for further challenge. Either way, what your family needs at the beginning is not a guarantee. It is an informed assessment of the current situation.

Author: Grigoriy Nosov, Head of Criminal Practice, Head of the Criminal Practice at Yalanzhi & Partners