Ukraine war: Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin jailed over 'fake news' — and other key developments
Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin guilty was found guilty on Friday of spreading "fake information" about the army, and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.
Prosecutors had sought a nine-year sentence for the Moscow district councillor. The outcome is the latest indication of an intensified crackdown on dissent by Russian authorities.
"With that hysterical sentence, the authorities want to scare us all but it effectively shows their weakness," Yashin said in a statement through his lawyers after the judge passed the sentence. "Only the weak want to shut everyone's mouth and eradicate any dissent."
Yashin was tried over a YouTube video released in April in which he discussed evidence uncovered by Western journalists of Russian war crimes in Bucha, near Kyiv, and cast doubt on the official Moscow version that such reports had been fabricated as a "provocation" against Russia.
Russia passed new legislation after invading Ukraine on February 24 that provides for jail terms of up to 15 years for disseminating false information about the military.
In his final statement to the court this week, Yashin appealed directly to President Putin, describing him as "the person responsible for this slaughter" and asking him to "stop this madness, recognise that the policy on Ukraine was wrong, pull back troops from its territory and switch to a diplomatic settlement of the conflict".
In June, Yashin was sentenced to 15 days in jail for "disobedience to the police" during an arrest, charges he dismissed as "fabricated".
Russian forces have shelled the entire front line in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, according to the regional governor.
The fiercest fighting was near the towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Pavlo Kyrylenko
Read more on euronews.com
