Moscow man gets seven years in jail for saying Ukrainian ‘children were dying’ in war

Even by the standards of Russian justice in recent years, a ruling in a Moscow court on Friday was something else.

In April, Alexei Gorinov, 60, attended a local meeting of the Krasnoselsky council in the Russian capital.

Mr Gorinov, an elected councillor, spoke out against proposals to hold a children’s drawing contest at the same time as “children were dying” in neighbouring Ukraine.

As a result of his factual remark, he has been sentenced to seven years in jail for making the comment, under new laws imposed by the regime of Vladimir Putin to crack down on any critics of his disastrous war in Ukraine.

Mr Gorinov, a lawyer, was found guilty of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian military. In one perverse way, he was lucky. The new laws, rubber-stamped by the Russian parliament a week after the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine, carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

He is the first person sentenced to serve time behind bars for a conviction on that charge, according to Net Freedoms, a legal aid group focused on free speech cases.

Two other convictions so far have led to a fine and a suspended sentence, the group said.

Setting unwanted records, Mr Gorinov, who was arrested in April, is also the first elected representative to face charges under the wartime law.

Compounding his “crime”, Mr Gorinov had criticised Russia’s military actions in Ukraine at the municipal council meeting in March.

A video on YouTube shows him voicing scepticism about holding a planned children’s art competition in his constituency while “every day children are dying” in Ukraine.

“I believe all efforts of [Russian] civil society should be aimed only at stopping the war and withdrawing Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine,” he added.

In court, no doubt resigned to his fate, he continued his protests against the war, which has claimed thousands of Russian and Ukrainian lives. Photographs published by Russian media showed Mr Gorinov inside a glass-walled defendant’s dock, holding up a sign that read: “Do you still need this war?”

A desperate bailiff tried to cover the sign with his hands.

Mr Gorinov’s sentencing has implications far beyond his own fate. When President Vladimir Putin ordered the 24 February invasion of Ukraine, a wave of outrage and antiwar sentiment swept across Russia.

Thousands of people protested on the streets of Moscow and St Petersburg daily, and hundreds of thousands signed online petitions opposing the attack. Those protests have now disappeared.

The Kremlin insisted that what it called a “special military operation” in Ukraine had overwhelming public support, and moved swiftly to suppress any criticism.

Thousands of protesters were arrested, and dozens of critical media outlets were shut down.

Individuals who spoke out publicly against the invasion or accused Russian troops of committing atrocities in Ukraine have been targeted under the new legislation, which outlawed the spread of “false information” about the invasion and disparaging the military.

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Now, many others potentially face the same fate as Mr Gorinov.

As of Friday, Net Freedoms said 68 criminal cases involving false information charges and at least 2,000 misdemeanour cases for the alleged disparagement of the Russian war, are in the legal system.

Among those awaiting trial is prominent opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Another defendant is standing trial for replacing labels at a supermarket with anti-war stickers.