A court in Moscow has sentenced a photographer who previously worked for jailed opposition politician Alexey Navalny to eight years in prison for comments he made on social media, prisoners’ rights group Pervy Otdel reported on Friday.
Alexander Strukov was found guilty of inciting terrorism and hatred for comments he posted on Telegram channel Znak.com following the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year. In addition to his jail sentence, he was also fined 200,000 rubles (€2,000) and banned from running a website for two years.
According to Pervy Otdel, Strukov’s posts included phrases such as "Glory to Ukraine!", "Down with the Cheka" and "Good morning everyone, down with Putin!"
Human rights activists said that legal expert Danila Mikheev had examined the comments and found that they did meet the definition of various forms of incitement.