Russian scientist Sofia Rosenfeld, who also holds Israeli citizenship, has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison by Moscow's Gagarinsky District Court for financing an "extremist organization." The two money transfers cited in the indictment amounted to 1,000 rubles each, worth approximately $12 to $14, and were made to the Anti-Corruption Foundation established by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison in February 2024. In an interview with Ynet, her father, Boris Rosenfeld, described the proceedings against his daughter and his fears about what awaits her.
Rosenfeld, 50, is a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences. She immigrated to Israel with her family in 1990, at the age of 14, but returned to Moscow about a year and a half later to continue her studies in Russia. She built her professional career there while retaining her Israeli citizenship and maintaining close ties with her family. According to her father, she visited Israel every year.
"Every time she returned to Russia, I was worried and warned her, but she didn't listen to me," Boris Rosenfeld said.
According to her father, the donation was made in 2021, when Navalny's organization was still operating legally. She donated a symbolic amount of no more than 80 shekels. The organization was subsequently outlawed while Sofia was participating in a research expedition to the Arctic and was unaware of the change.
Rosenfeld maintained that she was cut off from the outside world during the expedition when the transfers were made from her account. When she returned to Moscow later in 2021, she canceled the standing payment order, but the two payments had already gone through.
For four years, nothing happened. "Nobody contacted her," her father said.
Proceedings against her began only in late 2025. An indictment was filed in December, after she returned from Israel, but she remained free under restrictions prohibiting her from traveling or leaving Moscow. "I warned her not to return to Russia," Boris Rosenfeld recalled. "But there were no particular warning signs. Nothing had happened for four years."
According to her father, Sofia had hoped to receive a fine or community service. Instead, she was taken directly from the courtroom to prison, where she has been held since Wednesday.
Sentenced on October 7
The family has almost no way of contacting her. They cannot speak to her, and correspondence is possible only through letters sent via the Russian prison service. Her father wrote a short letter, but he said censorship made it impossible to convey "any meaningful message." Sofia has not replied.
Sofia Rosenfeld with her father, Boris, on a recent visit to Israel
Rosenfeld was reluctant to attribute the sentence to antisemitism or anti-Israeli sentiment, although he did not rule out the possibility.
"I don't know whether there's antisemitism or anti-Israeli sentiment behind this sentence. Everyone has that concern," he said. "I don't think there's a strong chance it was because of antisemitism, but who really knows?"
He suggested that Russia might be seeking to detain Israelis as leverage in negotiations over a possible deal. "It's a black box over there," he added.
He also addressed the timing of the sentencing, which took place on October 7, calling it "a symbolic sentence." He summed up the entire ordeal in a single sentence: "This whole process is pure Kafka."
Her father contacted the Israeli Foreign Ministry and was promised that the Israeli consul in Moscow would request permission to visit her in prison. The Foreign Ministry said it "is in contact with the family and is working with the Russian authorities to provide consular assistance."
Rosenfeld's imprisonment comes amid a widening wave of political persecution in Russia. According to monitoring by Mediazona and The Insider, approximately 220 sentences have been handed down in recent years over donations to Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, including about 24 prison terms ranging from four months to four years.
According to Mediazona, this is only the third case in Russia in which a woman has been sentenced to prison for donating to a Navalny organization, and only the second case in which a person holding Israeli citizenship has received a prison sentence in a political case in Russia following proceedings conducted in their presence.
The first was Yegor Grafov, 26, who was sentenced in May to 12 years in prison for throwing a Molotov cocktail at the headquarters of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow.