On December 9, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow found politician Ilya Yashin guilty of spreading “fake news” about the Russian army and sentenced him to 8.5 years in a penal colony, which is the most severe sentence under this article. Yashin himself commented on the verdict, saying that in this way the authorities want to intimidate the Russians. The Insider publishes the politician's comment in its entirety.
“So, the court sentenced me to 8 years and 6 months in prison. Well, the authors of the verdict are optimistic about Putin's prospects. In my opinion, it is too optimistic.
But we also have no reason to be sad, because we won this trial, friends. The process was conceived as a denunciation of the “enemy of the people” in my person, but turned into an anti-war tribune. We spoke the truth about war crimes and called for an end to the bloodshed. And in response they heard a hodgepodge of slogans from the Cold War era, which was confusedly voiced by the prosecutor.
The trembling hands of the public prosecutor became a vivid symbol of this process. He tried very hard to sound menacing and imitate the Stalinist prosecutors, but time after time he caused the audience to laugh and looked like a caricature. With this hysterical verdict, the government wants to intimidate us all, but in fact it only shows its weakness. Strong leaders are calm and self-confident, and only weaklings seek to shut everyone up, burn out any dissent. So today it only remains for me to repeat what was said on the day of my arrest: I am not afraid, and you are not afraid.
Changes are not far off, and soon we will have to do a lot of work to restore justice and humanism in our country.”
Earlier, the prosecutor requested for Yashin 9 years in prison in a penal colony. On December 6, during the court session, he stated that the politician was under the influence of foreign television and used information from "unfriendly associations" as evidence of the atrocities of Russian soldiers.