Russia: Well-known blogger sentenced to nine years in prison

Witch Hunt in Russia
Food blogger sentenced to nine years in prison for reporting on the crimes in Bucha

Veronika Belotserkovskaya was sentenced to nine years for her stance against Russia’s war in Ukraine

© Screenshot Instagram Veronika Belotserkovskaya

In Russia, the fight against regime critics is ongoing. The verdicts for alleged “forgeries” intended to discredit Moscow’s armed forces are piling up. It was not an opposition politician who received the highest penalty, but a food blogger.

Moscow’s notorious Basmanny court has issued another verdict for alleged “misinformation about the Russian armed forces”. This time it hit the well-known blogger and publisher Veronika Belotserkovskaya. In absentia, she was sentenced to nine years in prison.

According to the court, the 52-year-old “deliberately spread false information about the commission of murders of children by the armed forces of the Russian Federation, the bombing of a maternity ward in Mariupol and the killing of civilians in Bucha” on Instagram.

Belotserkovskaya has more than 1.3 million followers on the social network Instagram, which is now banned in Russia, and lives in France, where she runs a cooking school. In Russia, the Odessa-born Belotserkovskaya was involved in the media business, owning the Moscow and St. Petersburg versions of the British magazine Time Out and editing Sobaka.ru magazine. She is a well-known figure in Russian social life.

Clear position against the war

When Vladimir Putin gave the order to attack Ukraine on February 24 last year, she positioned herself against the war. Among other things, the cookbook author accused Vladimir Putin of “abusing boys between the ages of 18 and 20 as cannon fodder to achieve his goals”. On Instagram she writes: “The Ukrainians are not the enemy, they are our brothers and sisters.” Belotserkovskaya was born in Ukraine but raised in Russia and self-identifies as a “proud Russian”.

For such statements, Belotserkovskaya was among the first to be prosecuted for alleged “misinformation about the Russian armed forces.” “I was officially declared a decent person!” She commented on the investigation against her at the time. Her property in Russia was confiscated in the summer. The value is 153 million rubles, the equivalent of almost two million euros at the current exchange rate.

187 proceedings in Russia

The article on misinformation about the Russian army was included in the Russian Criminal Code shortly after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, the Russian authorities consider any information about the war in Ukraine that differs from the version of the Russian Defense Ministry to be false information. Violations can result in up to 15 years imprisonment.

According to the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, 187 procedures have already been initiated under the paragraph. The Kremlin critic and opposition politician Ilya Yashin was also sentenced to eight and a half years in prison last December for allegedly disparaging the Russian armed forces.

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