(Moscow) A Moscow court on Wednesday sentenced Russian blogger Anna Badditionova to five and a half years in prison for reading testimonies on the Twitch platform about the massacre attributed to Russia in the Ukrainian town of Boucha.
“Disgusting, disgusting, shitty! », Reacted the 30-year-old young woman from the glass cage reserved for the accused in the courtroom, according to AFP journalists present at the trial.
The court in the Ostankino district of northern Moscow found Badditionova guilty of “spreading false information” about alleged abuses by the Russian army in Ukraine on her YokoBovich channel on Twitch, a streaming service. live video.
“This is a harsh verdict, we will appeal. She is not a dangerous criminal,” said defense lawyer Andrei Nevrev.
The Russian army is accused of committing a massacre of hundreds of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, near Kyiv, during its retreat from the region in spring 2022.
Moscow rejects these accusations and denounces Western staging, despite numerous testimonies implicating Russian soldiers.
In April 2022, Ms. Badditionova read live testimonies from the residents of Boutcha, accusing the Russian military of the massacre.
“We expected a lighter verdict. It’s hard, scary,” Alexandre Demtchouk, 28, Ms. Badditionova’s partner, told journalists. “Anna wouldn’t leave the house, she suffers from agoraphobia. But she is strong, I hope she overcomes this,” he added.
Mr. Demtchouk explained that Anna Badditionova deleted her stream after it was published before the couple left for Kazakhstan for a few months. When they returned to Russia in the summer of 2023, nationalist bloggers supporting the offensive against Ukraine republished the video and filed a complaint.
Two months later, police came to the blogger’s home, confiscating her audiovisual equipment. His channel on Twitch has been blocked.
“Everyone can find themselves in their place […] I am not surprised by the verdict, but it is very painful for me,” said Alexandra Popova, 30, who came to the hearing in support to the accused. Her husband, the poet Artiom Kamardine, was sentenced to seven years in prison in December for reading verses denouncing the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Russia is engaged in merciless repression of critics of power. A number of personalities and anonymous people have been sentenced after being accused of spreading “false information” discrediting Russian forces.
In April 2024, Sergei Mingazov, a Russian journalist for the Russian edition of the media Forbes, was arrested for publications on the Boutcha massacre.
Opponent Ilia Yashin was sentenced at the end of 2022 to eight and a half years in prison for denouncing “the murder of civilians” in this same Ukrainian city.