Russian opposition activist given 25-year prison sentence

A court in Moscow has convicted a top Kremlin foe on charges of treason and denigrating the Russian military and sentenced him to 25 years in prison

Russia Opposition (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

A court in Moscow on Monday convicted a top Kremlin foe on charges of treason and denigrating the Russian military and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr., a prominent opposition activist who twice survived poisonings he blamed on the Kremlin, has been behind bars since his arrest a year ago. He has rejected the charges against him as political and likened the judicial proceedings against him to the show trials during the rule of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

The charges against Kara-Murza stem from his March 15 speech to the Arizona House of Representatives in which he denounced Russia’s military action in Ukraine. Investigators added the treason charges while he was in custody.

Russia adopted a law criminalizing spreading “false information” about its military shortly after it sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Authorities have used the law to stifle criticism of what the Kremlin calls “a special military operation.”