The Moscow City Court at a meeting on Wednesday upheld the verdict against opposition politician Ilya Yashin. In December 2022, he was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for a forged article about the Russian military for spreading information about the Bucha killings.
Broadcast from the courtroom on April 19 directed “Mediazone”. Yashin participated via video link from the remand center. The court denied him physical presence and a re-examination of the evidence in the case. The court also refused to summon the official representative of the Ministry of Defense Igor Konashenkov for questioning and to verify the criminal article on counterfeits of the Russian army to comply with the Russian Constitution.
“I understand very well that the only way to get mitigation (sentence) is to repent, ask for forgiveness, call the blacks white and at the same time return one of my comrades. This will not happen “, Yashin said, noting that his conscience is clean and that he calmly accepts his fate.
In December, Yashin was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for a forged article about the Russian military. Russian courts recognize as false reports about the war in Ukraine that do not coincide with the version of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Yashin maintains his innocence and believes his prosecution is politically motivated.
The case against Yashin was opened because of his YouTube feed about the killings of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. The opponent cited evidence that Bucha residents were killed by the Russian army and analyzed the arguments of the Russian side, which calls the Bucha killings fake.
Ilya Yashin is one of the few opposition politicians who did not leave Russia after a crackdown on supporters of Alexei Navalny and the start of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine . The human rights project “Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial” recognized Yashin as a political prisoner. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities filed charges for anti-war speeches and statements. At least 528 criminal cases have been filed for this, including 154 under the Russian military forgery article, calculated “OVD-Info”.
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