A Russian court has sentenced opposition politician Maxim Kruglov to seven years in prison after finding him guilty of spreading what authorities called false information about the Russian army.
Kruglov, deputy chairman of the liberal Yabloko party and a former Moscow municipal deputy, was arrested in October last year over Telegram posts he published in 2022, the year Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The case comes two months before elections to the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, which are due to be held in September.
Kruglov pleaded not guilty in court. He said he considered the war in Ukraine a tragedy and believed it should end as soon as possible.
According to the case against him, one of the posts referred to United Nations figures on the number of people killed during the war, while another concerned events in Bucha, a town north of Kyiv, in March 2022.
Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Russian forces of killing civilians in Bucha. Moscow denies the allegations and claims the killings were staged to discredit its troops.
Yabloko was one of Russia’s main liberal parties in the early years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but today it holds only a small number of seats in regional legislatures and none in the national parliament.
Despite its limited political weight, its continued participation in elections gives it one of the few remaining legal platforms in Russia for expressing anti-war positions.
Source: AMNA
