On this photograph taken from a video launched by the Russian Protection Ministry on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, a Russian soldier fires from a D-30 howitzer in the direction of Ukrainian positions at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. | Picture credit score: Russian Protection Ministry press service by way of AP
A Russian information editor in Siberia was sentenced Friday to eight years in jail for publishing vital materials about Moscow’s crackdown in Ukraine, which has been accompanied in Russia by a large crackdown on dissent.
Sergei Mikhailov, a journalist and editor from the mountainous Altai area, was arrested within the first weeks of the Kremlin’s 2022 army marketing campaign, shortly after repressive legal guidelines have been handed banning criticism of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
He had posted on-line messages about civilian deaths within the kyiv suburb of Bucha and in Mariupol.
A courtroom within the metropolis of Gorno-Altaysk sentenced the 48-year-old man after discovering him responsible of “intentionally spreading false info” concerning the Russian army.
Prosecutors stated he was “motivated by political hatred.”
Mikhailov ran the small opposition social media channel “Listok” within the Siberian republic of Altai, a area that has despatched many males to Ukraine.
In a speech to the courtroom earlier this week, Mikhailov stood by his report and sharply criticized the Kremlin for sending troops into Ukraine.
He stated the Russian state narrative of calling the Ukrainian management “fascist” had “created an entire digital universe within the info area, and this fog turned stronger and stronger.”
“My posts have been directed in opposition to this fog, in order that my readers wouldn’t be seduced by lies, wouldn’t take part in armed conflicts, wouldn’t grow to be murderers and victims, and wouldn’t hurt the brotherly Ukrainian individuals,” Mikhailov stated in an audio of the speech posted by Listok on social media.
Greater than 1,000 individuals have been prosecuted in Russia for criticising the Russian offensive in opposition to Ukraine because the begin of the armed battle in February 2022, in accordance with the OVD-Information monitor.