Prosecutor requests nine years in prison for Ilya Yashin over ‘fake news’ about actions of Russian army in Bucha

The prosecutor has demanded a nine-year prison sentence for Ilya Yashin, a Russian politician and Putin’s critic accused of “spreading false information” about the Russian army, a newsperson for Novaya-Europe reports from the courtroom.

While Yashin’s defender Maria Eysmont was applying for reports of the global media on the Bucha events to be considered by court, an evacuation of everyone present in the courthouse was declared.

The judge granted the motion despite the prosecutor’s objection, and the reports were considered after the evacuation finished.

The prosecutor referred to the reports by OSCE and UN regarding the Bucha events as “biassed, one-sided and hostile". He also stated that the EU and UN “did not write anything about the Odesa tragedy and did not investigate the persecution and teh genocide of the people in Donbas,” which proves their “bias”.

“Only media from the unfriendly states and US satellites such as NATO and the EU, wrote about Russia’s crimes in Bucha,” the prosecutor read aloud from a piece of paper. He only referred to the Ukrainian authorities as “the Kyiv regime”.

Yashin was sent into a pre-trial facility on 13 July. He was later charged with “denying violation of rights of DPR and LPR citizens”.