On Tuesday, the Riga District Court sentenced Professor Alexander Gaponenko to ten years of imprisonment and three years of probation for assisting a foreign state, as well as for inciting national hatred and enmity.
The prosecutor's office informed the LETA agency that the prosecutor is satisfied with the court's decision, considering it justified and lawful. During the court debates, she also requested that the final punishment be exactly as stated in the verdict.
The accused will be able to appeal the verdict in the Riga Regional Court. His lawyer, Imma Jansone, told the LETA agency that she would ask the court to prepare the full text of the verdict, and after reviewing it, the verdict will be appealed.
Gaponenko, who is still in custody, does not admit his guilt.
As reported, in February 2025, the accused remotely connected to a public discussion organized in Moscow by the "Institute of CIS Countries" titled "The Ethnocide of Russian Compatriots in the Baltic States as a Factor in Preparing for War with Russia" and delivered a speech in which he expressed support for Russia's policy on supporting the diaspora, endorsed the work of the "Institute of CIS Countries," and spoke about his activities in preparing public information about the oppression of Russians in Latvia.
According to the prosecutor's office, the accused deliberately spread false statements, portraying Latvians as hostile towards the Russian-speaking population, including the persecution of Russians, the ban on the Russian language, and the liquidation of Russian-language schools.
The dissemination of such information contributed to Russia's geopolitical interests directed against Latvia and the Baltic States, the Latvian prosecutor's office believes.
According to the prosecutor's office, Gaponenko also stated that one way to stop the "ethnocide of Russians" could be Russia's invasion of the Baltic States, including Latvia, for which, in his opinion, it is necessary to prepare and ensure ideological training.
At the conference, the accused spoke alongside other subjects of Latvia, against whom criminal proceedings have been separated into a separate case.
For Reference
A non-citizen of Latvia, Alexander Gaponenko was born in Melitopol (Ukrainian SSR) in 1954.
He graduated from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Latvia and worked at the Institute of Economics of the Latvian SSR Academy of Sciences. In 1984, he defended his candidate dissertation in the specialty of "Political Economy."
He became a member of the scientific council, which was the only one in the Baltic States supervising scientific works in political economy. Among the doctoral candidates was Lithuanian candidate Kazimira Prunskene, whose scientific advisor was Algirdas Brazauskas.
In 1993, upon the nostrification of Soviet diplomas, he received a Doctor of Economics degree from the University of Latvia.
From 1993 to 2012, he was an associate professor at the Russian Baltic Institute (Baltic International Academy).
Since 2004, he has been the president of the Institute of European Studies.
