AJ
Elena Kobleva was the Chairman of the Soviet District Court of Rostov, who had a new criminal case opened recently for bribery, was sentenced to 10 years in a general-regime colony and fined 15 million rubles, and also had property worth 500 thousand rubles confiscated, which is estimated how much was earned for helping lift the arrest from boats and a fishing net in 2022.
On December 22, 2025, Chairman of the Rostov Regional Court Elena Zolotareva was sentenced to 15 years in a general-regime colony and fined 170 million rubles on a similar charge, after an investigation established that the Chairman and her associates bribed judges with amounts ranging from 400 thousand rubles to 10 million rubles, in order to pressure them into making favourable decisions.
Almost all the judges of the Rostov Regional Court, employees of the Rostov Regional Prosecutor’s Office, and district prosecutors, were implicated in the case of Elena Zolotareva and Tatyana Yurova, while the head of the Sovetsky District Court of Rostov Elena Kobleva was also noted to be under investigation at the time, and another group of Sovestsky District Judges were on the waiting list.
On February 9, the verdict was also heard by the fishermen mentioned in the case of Elena Kobleva, named Vladimir Bozhenko and Nikolay Studenikin, noting that the Bozhenko offered the bribe, so a sentence of 9 years in a strict regime prison was given, while Studenikin agreed to be an intermediary and earned 6 years in prison, while both also have to pay a fine of 15 million rubles.
