Journalist sentenced to seven years in prison for criticising Russian army

A Russian journalist was sentenced to seven years in prison on Wednesday for spreading “false information” about the Russian army.

Roman Ivanov, who worked for Russian independent news outlet RusNews, was convicted for making a series of social media posts criticising the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including one where he shared an article by The New York Times about the mass murder of civilians in Bucha.

During his final statement to the court, Ivanov spoke of a shared guilt over the Russian army’s actions in Ukraine, adding that the massacre in Bucha showed Russia’s “terrible war brought nothing but fear, pain, grief, destruction and loss to another country as well as to itself”.

At the end of his statement, Ivanov fell to his knees to beg forgiveness from the Ukrainian people. As he left the courtroom crowds shouted “We are with you, you are not alone.”

Following his sentencing, Ivanov’s mother made a statement in which she described the case against her son as “completely fabricated”.

Russia’s laws on spreading “false information” and “discrediting” the army were introduced shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and have been used to target anyone critical of the war.