Former vice-rector of a Tomsk university Vladimir Vaks died in pretrial detention. Three months ago, he was se...

Former vice-rector of a Tomsk university Vladimir Vaks died in pretrial detention. Three months ago, he was sentenced on embezzlement charges

Vladimir Vaks, 75, a former vice-rector of Tomsk State University of Architecture and Building (TGASU), was being held in the pretrial detention center in the city of Kolpashevo in Tomsk Region. According to the Federal Penitentiary Service, Vaks’s health sharply deteriorated, he was hospitalized, and on May 19 he died in the hospital.

In the early 2000s, Vaks headed the city branch of United Russia, then served as chairman of the Tomsk Audit Chamber, and later became vice-rector of TGASU.

In February 2026, a court sentenced Vaks to four years in a penal colony on charges of embezzling budget funds. According to investigators, he fictitiously employed his son’s friend, who in the end received 8.8 million rubles in salary over four years.

Vaks’s lawyer said that his client was supposed to be transferred onward, but was taken to the Kolpashevo pretrial detention center, even though there are no penal colonies there. By doing this, Federal Penitentiary Service employees severely undermined the health of Vaks, who already had chronic illnesses.

@meduzalive