In Russia, a Siberian news editor, Sergei Mikhailov, was sentenced to eight years in prison on Friday for publishing material critical of Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine. This comes as part of a broader crackdown on dissent within the country.
Arrested Under Repressive Laws
Mikhailov, a journalist and editor in the Altai region, was detained in the early weeks following the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. His arrest came shortly after Russia introduced stringent laws banning criticism of the war. Mikhailov had published online posts detailing civilian casualties in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and in Mariupol, actions that prosecutors claimed were politically motivated.
The court in Gorno-Altaisk, a city in the mountainous Altai region, found the 48-year-old guilty of “knowingly spreading fake information” about the Russian military. Prosecutors argued that Mikhailov was driven by “political hatred.”
Mikhailov, who managed the small opposition social media channel “Listok” in Siberia’s Altai republic—a region that has seen many of its men sent to fight in Ukraine—remained defiant in court. In a speech earlier this week, he criticized the Kremlin for its actions in Ukraine and denounced the state’s narrative, which paints the Ukrainian leadership as “fascist.”
“My publications were aimed against this fog, so that my readers were not seduced by lies, so that they do not take part in armed conflicts, do not become murderers and victims, and so that they do not harm the brotherly Ukrainian people,” Mikhailov said, according to an audio recording of his speech shared by Listok on social media.
Mikhailov’s case is part of a broader trend of repression in Russia since the onset of the conflict in February 2022. According to OVD-Info, a rights monitoring group, more than 1,000 individuals have been prosecuted in Russia for criticizing the war in Ukraine. The harsh sentence handed to Mikhailov underscores the severe risks faced by journalists and activists who speak out against the Kremlin’s policies.