The journalist was sentenced within the southern Siberian metropolis of Barnaul. (Representational)

Moscow:

A Russian court docket at present sentenced a journalist to 6 years in jail for feedback vital of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, officers stated, as a part of an ongoing crackdown on dissent.

The decision is the newest in a sequence of high-profile rulings below new laws that critics say is designed to criminalise criticism of the army intervention.

Maria Ponomarenko, 44, was sentenced for spreading data she knew to be false about Moscow’s military, stated the Investigative Committee, which probes main crimes.

The journalist was sentenced within the southern Siberian metropolis of Barnaul, the place she labored for the RusNews web site.

She was prosecuted for a publish on social media final March associated to an assault on a theatre in Ukraine’s port metropolis of Mariupol that got here below Russian management after an extended siege.

Kyiv and its Western allies blamed Moscow for the demise of tons of of civilians within the assault, which Russia denies.

Prosecutors had requested a jail time period of 9 years.

Ponomarenko was arrested final April in Russia’s second metropolis of Saint Petersburg earlier than being transferred to Barnaul.

Her lawyer has raised alarm over Ponomarenko’s deteriorating psychological well being and requested that she receives therapy, the OVD-Information law-enforcement monitoring group reported.

After the Kremlin ordered troops into Ukraine practically a 12 months in the past, Russia launched new laws criminalising what authorities take into account to be false or damaging details about the Russian military and the offensive.

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