Putin promises to deal with Oksana Sevastidi’s sentence

Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to deal with the sentence imposed on Sochi resident Oksana Sevastidi for treason. Sevastidi was sentenced to seven years in prison for sending a text message to a Georgian friend about military equipment that she saw in Sochi just several months before the war in South Ossetia in 2008.

In response to whether he believed the verdict to be fair, however, Putin did say that he could not interfere in the justice process because Russia’s judiciary branch is independent.

• Oksana Sevastidi was convicted in March 2016, but the verdict was announced only in December 2016.
• In an interview with Meduza, Sevastidi said that, in April 2008, four months before the war with Georgia, saw a train with military equipment and sent a friend a text message about this. “There were a lot of tourists [all] they [all] took pictures. Somehow, none of them were sentenced for this,” Sevastidi said.
• In November 2014, Sochi resident Ekaterina Kharebava was sentenced for the same thing. She was sentenced to six years in prison for espionage.