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A Moscow court sentenced investigative journalists Roman Anin and Yekaterina Fomina to eight and a half years in prison each in absentia for spreading “fake news” about the Russian military’s actions in Ukraine, the exiled news outlet IStories reported Monday.
In June, Russian authorities issued arrest warrants for Anin, the co-founder and publisher of IStories, and Fomina, now a journalist with the exiled broadcaster Dozhd.
According to IStories, Fomina was sentenced over her 2022 investigation into the killings of civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha during the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Moscow denies its forces committed atrocities in Bucha and claims Ukraine and its Western allies staged the bloody scenes. Fomina has said her case is riddled with procedural and factual errors.
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Anin was charged over two news reports published on IStories’ YouTube channel in the summer of 2022.
Russia criminalized the spread of what it deems “false” information about its military shortly after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The journalists’ sentences will take effect if they are detained in Russia or extradited, according to IStories, which cited the state-run news agency TASS. The court also banned them from managing websites for three years.
Their lawyer, Yulia Kuznetsova, called the convictions “illegal and absurd” and vowed to appeal.
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