Konstantin Kotov

Konstantin Aleksandrovich Kotov (; born 22 February 1985) is a Russian software engineer and political activist. In September 2019, he was sentenced to four years in prison for participating in unsanctioned protests and was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

Since 2016, Kotov has been known for his political activism and was an organizer of a picket in support of the imprisoned Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov in 2018. He was regarded by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. After a public outcry, President Vladimir Putin in January 2020 ordered the Prosecutor-General's Office to review the sentencing's legality and two days later, the Constitutional Court of Russia ruled that the case must be reviewed. In April, the Moscow City Court upheld the sentence but reduced Kotov's prison sentence to 18 months and his term was recalculated to include his time served in pre-trial detention (where one day equals 1.5 days served at a corrective colony).

Put back under house arrest for donation to Alexei Navalny foundation, Kotov left Russia in 2024.

Awards In December 2019, Kotov was chosen by readers of Vedomosti as Person of the Year in the Private Individual category.

In June 2020, Kotov was the winner of the Boris Nemtsov Prize for 2020 by the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom.

In December 2020, Kotov was awarded the Moscow Helsinki Group Prize for courage in protecting human rights.

Personal life In October 2019, Kotov married Anna Pavlikova (born 2000), co-defendant in the , while he was being held at the Matrosskaya Tishina detention center.