The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs placed Nikolai Polozov, a lawyer currently residing in Ukraine, and Alla Konstantinova, a journalist with the dissident news website Mediazona, on a wanted list on Friday, according to local media. Both individuals have previously been marked as “foreign agents.”

Charges against Polozov are not known yet. In December 2024, Polozov was identified as a “foreign agent.” A month later, he was fined on the charges of discreditation of Russian forces for comments on YouTube spanning back to April 2022, when he commented about the murders of Bucha civilians. In June 2025, Polozov was fined for failing to mark himself as a “foreign agent” when posting on Telegram.

Polozov, who is originally from Moscow, has defended activists and Ukrainians in court since the 2010s. In 2012, he represented Pussy Riot, an activist punk rock group known for their opposition of Putin’s regime, after their arrest following a “Putin’s Pissed Himself” performance in the Red Square, Moscow. Around 2013, Polozov spent several years defending the leader of the Left Front movement, Sergei Udaltsov, who was one of the catalysts of the anti-government protests at the time. From 2014 to 2016, Polozov defended a Ukrainian forces pilot, Nadezda Savchenko, who was captured by the Russian forces after the Russian annexation of Crimea. Savchenko was convicted to 22 years in prison after an unfair trial, according to Human Rights Watch.

In 2022, Polozov became one of the creators of a Search.Captive project that focuses on searching for, defending, and returning home captured Ukrainian soldiers, children, and civilians. In June 2025, Polozov shared of creation of at least five prisons for captured Ukrainian soldiers in Russia.

Reportedly, the criminal case raised against Konstantinova is based on failing to follow the regulations surrounding “foreign agents,” which she has been identified as by the Russian government since 2022. According to Konstantinova, she was not informed of the charges right away. 

Konstantinova, who is originally from Karelia but left Russia, has been a journalist for Mediazona since 2019. She covered abuse in Russian prisons, harmful Covid policies, and various human rights violations after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.