CRACKDOWN

Russia Sentences Reporter to Jail for Ukraine Hospital Bombing Post

Veronika Belotserkovskaya was among the first to be charged in absentia under Moscow’s wartime “disinformation” law.

A Moscow court on Monday sentenced a journalist in absentia to nine years in jail after being convicted of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian armed forces. Ukrainian-born Russian reporter and food blogger Veronika Belotserkovskaya was first charged with breaching the Kremlin’s wartime law on disinformation after she posted to Instagram in March about Russia shelling a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol and the massacre of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Belotserkovskaya lives in France and is unlikely to have to serve her sentence, but she has already had $2.1 million worth of property she owned in Russia seized by a court order. She has also been declared a “foreign agent” and added to Moscow’s wanted list, making her subject to legal and financial constraints.