A Moscow court judged investigative journalists novel Anin and Yekaterina Fomina to eight and a half years in prison each in the absence of spreading “false news” about the Russian military’s actions in Ukraine, the exile news room -Initories reported Monday.
In June, Russian authorities issued arrest warrants for Anine, co-founder and publisher of Edhistory and Fomina, now a journalist with the exile TV station Dozhd.
According to istories, Fomina was convicted of her 2022 investigation of killing civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha in the first weeks of Russia’s full scale invasion.
Moscow denies his forces committed atrocities in Bucha and claims that Ukraine and its Western allies staged the bloody scenes. Fomina has said her case is full of procedural and actual errors.
Anin was charged with two news reports published on the Otisties’ YouTube channel in the summer of 2022.
Russia criminalized the spread of what it finds “false” information about its military shortly after launching its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Journalists’ judgments come into force if they are detained in Russia or handed out, according to Edory, who cited the state news agency Tass. The court also banned them from managing sites for three years.
Their lawyer, Yulia Kuznetsova, called the conviction “illegal and absurd” and promised to appeal.
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