MOSCOW (HRNW) – Russian opposition activist Ilya Yashin on Wednesday predicted he would one day help build a “new and free Russia” after losing his appeal against an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence on a charge of spreading false information about the army.
Yashin, a longtime ally of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was arrested in June 2022 for statements that he made on his YouTube channel about war crimes allegedly committed by Russian forces in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.
Moscow denies that its forces have committed war crimes or attacked civilians in what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, saying such allegations have been fabricated to damage its reputation.
Yashin’s appeal was turned down two days after his fellow Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed for 25 years on charges of treason and also, like Yashin, “knowingly spreading false information”. Kara-Murza had made speeches in the United States and Europe accusing Russia of bombing civilians in Ukraine.