The Tverskoy district court in Moscow has handed a three-year suspended sentence to social media influencer Alexandra Mitroshina, alongside a fine of 900,000 roubles and the confiscation of 115 million roubles in assets, marking one of the most high-profile financial crime verdicts in Russia this year. Mitroshina, known online as “Mat’ blogya” (Mother of Blogging), was convicted of laundering proceeds from a prior tax evasion scheme. Prosecutors established that between 2020 and 2024 she channelled more than 127 million roubles in undeclared income into the purchase of luxury flats on Moscow’s Krasnopresnenskaya embankment and Bolshaya Dmitrovka street. The court ordered the state to seize the 55 million roubles from the sale of one property and 60.2 million roubles returned by a developer under a shared-equity agreement. Mitroshina, who partially admitted guilt, will appeal, her lawyer said, describing her as “a very strong person” who reacted calmly to a verdict the defence considers unjust.

The case is not an isolated crackdown. In Russia’s Far East, two teenagers from Lesozavodsk are to stand trial before a military court on terrorism charges after they set fire to relay and battery cabinets on the Trans-Siberian railway in May 2025. A handler on a messaging app had promised them 80,000 roubles; they received just 8,000 after filming the arson, and were swiftly detained by the FSB. Meanwhile, a resident of Murom, Vladimir region, was sentenced to 17 years in a strict-regime colony for torching cars in Moscow on instructions from Ukrainian handlers, with the court also confiscating his action cameras and mobile phone. He was promised 70,000 roubles but never paid. These cases illustrate a pattern: Russian security services are aggressively pursuing both white-collar and ideologically tinged offences, and courts are routinely deploying asset forfeiture to strip convicts of ill-gotten gains.

The efficiency of Moscow’s confiscation machinery stands in stark contrast to events in Buenos Aires. A year after former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner began serving a six-year prison sentence for fraudulent administration in the so-called Vialidad case, the Argentine state has not recovered a single peso of the embezzled funds. Her defence teams have filed an unrelenting stream of appeals and procedural challenges that have paralysed the asset recovery chapter of the sentence. Despite a lifetime ban from public office, Kirchner remains a powerful political figure, and the judicial inertia has fuelled public scepticism about accountability. Viewed from Washington or European capitals, the Argentine impasse underscores how legal manoeuvring can indefinitely delay restitution even after a high-level corruption conviction.

Analysts in London note that Russia’s willingness to confiscate assets swiftly—whether from a famous blogger or a provincial arsonist—sends a deterrent signal, but also raises questions about proportionality and the selective application of justice. The Mitroshina appeal will test whether the courts are prepared to revisit a case that has already delivered a substantial financial penalty. In Argentina, the Kirchner saga is likely to drag on, reinforcing a regional narrative in which powerful defendants can shield their wealth through endless litigation. For international observers, the two episodes offer a comparative study in how states balance the imperative of recovering criminal proceeds against the rights of defendants—and how political context shapes the pace of justice.