Russian Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Criticizing Ukraine Invasion

A Russian man was sentenced to five years in prison today for criticizing the offensive in Ukraine in response to questions from journalists, and was arrested inside the courtroom at a Moscow courthouse following an appeal by the prosecution.

Yuri Kokhovets, 38, had already been found guilty at the end of April of “discrediting the army” and sentenced to five years of correctional work, but was eventually released.

 

However, the prosecution appealed the decision, demanding a harsher sentence.

Today, a Moscow court decided to change the verdict on Yuri Kokhovets and sentence him to five years in a penal camp, the judge announced, quoted by the official news agency, TASS.

The defendant was detained in the courtroom, according to a TASS correspondent present at the hearing.

Although hundreds of opponents, activists and ordinary Russian citizens have been detained for expressing dissent since the beginning of Russia's attack on Ukraine in February 2022, this is the first known case of prosecution for answering journalists' questions.

In July 2022, Kokhovets spontaneously responded to an interview request from the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) media, along with statements from other passers-by on the streets of Moscow, and openly criticized the authorities as well as the offensive in Ukraine.

Questioned outside a metro station, Kokhovets accused Russian soldiers of having “killed civilians without reason” in Butcha, a town near Kiev that was the scene of a massacre attributed to Moscow forces.

After being detained and later released by the police, subject only to a small fine, Kokhovets finally saw his case reclassified under a charge introduced into the criminal code at the start of the conflict and for which thousands of Russians have already been convicted, sometimes with heavy prison sentences.

Almost all of the main opponents of President Vladimir Putin's regime have fled Russia or been arrested.

The best known of them, Alexei Navalny, died in obscure circumstances in a prison in the Arctic in February.