'Putin will be toppled before sentence ends' Russian opposition politician ... trends now
A Russian opposition politician who was today jailed for eight and a half years for criticising the brutal war in Ukraine declared from the court dock that Vladimir Putin would be toppled long before his sentence was completed.
Ilya Yashin, 39, a Moscow councillor, was sentenced for spreading 'false information' about Russia's horrific war crimes in Bucha in the highest-profile conviction under new legislation criminalising criticism of the war.
His supporters in the courtroom applauded Yashin, who smiled and waved to family despite being handcuffed, as the sentence was read.
Addressing supporters before he was led away, Yashin, one of the few Kremlin critics to have stayed in Russia, predicted Putin would be toppled long before his release date.
Ilya Yashin, 39, a Moscow councillor, was sentenced for spreading 'false information' about Russia's horrific war crimes in Bucha in the highest-profile conviction under new legislation criminalising criticism of the war
Russian opposition leader, former Moscow's municipal deputy Ilya Yashin (C) stands inside a defendant's cage prior to a verdict hearing at the Meshchansky district court in Moscow, Russia on Friday
'Don't get upset, it's ok,' Yashin told his supporters. 'If anyone thinks that Putin will rule for eight years, he is a very big optimist.'
During the sentencing, Judge Oksana Goryunova said Yashin had committed a crime by disseminating 'knowingly false information about Russia's armed forces'.
In April, Yashin had described the murder of civilians in Bucha as a 'massacre', referring to a town near the capital Kyiv where civilians were found killed after Russian forces were forced to retreat.
During the trial at Moscow's Meshchansky District Court, Yashin argued that his case has been fabricated and 'has all the markings of illegal political persecution.' He noted that in the video he cited Russian official sources along with Ukrainian statements to give his audience an objective view.
The Moscow city councillor is an ally of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and was close to Boris Nemtsov, an opposition politician assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015.
'Another shameless and lawless verdict from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will not silence Ilya and it should not intimidate Russia's honest people,' Navalny said on Instagram shortly after the verdict.
Navalny, 46, is serving a nine-year sentence on embezzlement charges that are widely seen as politically motivated. His political organisations have been outlawed.
Addressing supporters before he was led away, Yashin, one of the few Kremlin critics to have stayed in Russia, predicted Putin would be toppled long before his release date
Yashin remained in Russia even after Putin sent troops to Ukraine on February 24 and regularly condemned the Kremlin's offensive in Ukraine to his 1.3 million subscribers on YouTube.
He was tried under new laws that came into force after February, when fighting intensified in Ukraine, to
