Court replaces prison term with fine for Russian soldier who spoke about Ukraine’s military gains

An appellate panel of the Southern District Military Court has overturned a prison sentence for Seferbeg Gadzhiev, a warrant officer based in Rostov-on-Don who was convicted of spreading “fake news” about the Russian military while using his official position. The court replaced the sentence with a fine, Kommersant reported.

In April 2025, a court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Gadzhiev to five and a half years in prison and stripped him of his military rank.

Prosecutors said that in September 2024, while serving as duty officer at a military commandant’s office and leading a guard detail at a warehouse, Gadzhiev sought to “frighten the personnel under his command” by “misleading them about the course of the special military operation.”

According to the case file, Gadzhiev knowingly relayed “false information” to his subordinates about the situation on the front lines, “exaggerating the enemy’s successes in the Donetsk People’s Republic and negatively assessing the actions of the Russian Armed Forces.” He pleaded guilty in court.

On appeal, Gadzhiev’s defense team did not seek to overturn the conviction but cited procedural violations during the trial and argued that the court had overlooked several mitigating factors. They maintained that Gadzhiev’s remarks were made in a private conversation with fellow soldiers and thus did not constitute an abuse of his official position. They also noted that the court had failed to consider his personal record, including a donation of 10,000 rubles ($125) to a local children’s aid center, as well as his family circumstances: he has elderly parents and a young child and had expressed a desire to deploy to the front.

The appellate court ultimately found that Gadzhiev had not initiated the conversation and that his comments were “not perceived by others as coercive or authoritative.” While the court declined to reclassify the charges, it commuted his sentence to a fine of 2.5 million rubles ($31,500) and restored his military rank.