Russian journalist and former deputy Alexander Nevzorov was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison on Wednesday for allegedly spreading “false information” about the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine.
Russia approved – from the first weeks of the attack on Ukraine launched on February 24, 2022 – severe punishments for anyone who criticized the offensive or the actions of the army.
Alexander “Nevzorov was sentenced to eight years in prison,” the judge of the Moscow Basmanny Court, quoted by Russian news agencies, determined.
The prosecution had demanded nine years in prison, while the defense lawyer had asked for the acquittal of his client, who went into exile abroad and maintains a channel on the YouTube network with almost two million subscribers.
At the end of March 2022, the Commission of Inquiry in charge of major lawsuits in Russia announced the opening of an investigation against 64-year-old Nevzorov, accusing him of “knowingly publishing false information about a ‘deliberate bombing of a hospital’ maternity hospital in Mariupol by the Russian army”.
Russia denies bombing civilian sites in Ukraine and blames Ukrainians.
Today’s verdict was announced at a time when Russia is increasingly repressing the media and journalists, especially in connection with the military offensive that began almost a year ago in Ukraine.
It was also announced today that Ilya Iachine, an opponent of the regime, has been sentenced to eight years and five months in prison for denouncing “the murder of civilians” in the Ukrainian town of Buscha, near Kiev, where the Russian army is accused of various human rights violations. people.
In addition, Russia’s Federal Security Service has arrested three people accused of carrying out “terrorist attacks” on the country’s rail network in the Sverdlovsk region, allegedly on the orders of Ukrainian radicals.
Source: DN
