A Moscow court on Friday sentenced opponent Ilya Yashin to eight and a half years in prison for criticizing the military offensive against Ukraine, after a trial illustrating the climate of repression in Russia.
This charismatic 39-year-old man was on trial for having denounced, in a live intervention on YouTube, “the killing of civilians” in the Ukrainian town of Boutcha, near kyiv, where the Russian army has been accused of abuses, which Moscow denies.
The court found the opponent guilty of broadcasting “fake news“on the army and sentenced him to eight and a half years in a penal colony, according to an AFP correspondent. The prosecutor had requested nine years in prison.
Mr. Iachine, a turtleneck sweater and thin glasses, greeted the decision with a laugh, while his supporters cried out in indignation in the courtroom. “You will come out first! Do not despair !“, launched one of them. He arrived Friday smiling at the court, multiplying winks and hand gestures in the direction of his relatives and even finding the opportunity to joke.I think the judge doesn’t want to read the verdict“, he launched, while the magistrate was slow to enter the courtroom.
His trial was particularly watched in Russia, as he was one of the last prominent Russian opponents not to have fled his country or not been imprisoned. Because in parallel with the intervention in Ukraine, the Kremlin has accelerated the repression inside Russia, pursuing those who contest this military operation.
The opponent Alexeï Navalny, the pet peeve of the Kremlin who has been serving a heavy prison sentence since the beginning of 2021 after surviving poisoning, denounced a conviction on Friday “shameful“, in a message on Instagram.
Sign of the ambient tension, the trial of Mr. Iachine was marked by several overflows. During a hearing at the end of November, a scuffle broke out in front of the room, court security agents having tackled the opponent’s father to the ground. And a hearing scheduled for Wednesday was postponed due to a bomb threat.
I love my country and I’m willing to sacrifice my freedom to live here
Mr. Iachine had been arrested in June and remanded in custody in July. The opponent was prosecuted on the basis of articles of the criminal code introduced shortly after the start of the offensive in Ukraine and which punish those who “discredit“the Russian army or”publish false information“about his actions.
These texts are vague and their scope is very broad. Critics of the Kremlin see it as a “catch-all” tool“ to drown out the voices of all those who oppose his military intervention in Ukraine.
Despite his arrest, Mr. Iachine continued to harshly criticize the authorities and denounce the army offensive launched in February.
In early November, he accused the Russian judges of being “servants“power and give Mr. Putin a”feeling of impunity“.
On the occasion of another hearing, he had explained his refusal to flee Russia by declaring: “I love my country and I am ready to sacrifice my freedom to live here (…). i am a patriot“.
Mr. Yachine was close to the opponent Boris Nemtsov, assassinated in 2015, but also to the activist slayer of corruption Alexei Navalny.
His trial was part of multiple court cases against opposition politicians or private individuals who criticized Russian intervention in Ukraine.
In July, an opposition municipal deputy in Moscow, Alexei Gorinov, was tried for disseminating “fake news” on the Russian army after denouncing the conflict in Ukraine and sentenced to seven years in prison.