Overview
- Alexei Smirnov was sentenced by a Kursk judge on Monday to 14 years in a maximum-security colony and fined 400 million rubles.
- The court ordered the confiscation of 20.95 million rubles, stripped him of a state award, and banned him from public office for 10 years.
- Smirnov pleaded guilty in a deal last September, admitting he took more than 20 million rubles in kickbacks from firms hired to build border defenses.
- Prosecutors had asked for 15 years, and Smirnov called the term disproportionate, according to state media reports from the hearing.
- The case follows Ukraine’s August 2024 push into Kursk and has widened to contractor convictions in February and allegations implicating predecessor Roman Starovoit, who died by suicide in July 2025.