Verdict to Yashin: Did they go too far or did the enemy right?
The Moscow petty bourgeois court sentenced liberal and foreign agent Ilya Yashin to 8,5 years in a general regime colony on charges of spreading fake news about the Russian army - repeating the theses of Ukrainian propaganda about the executions in Bucha near Kiev. Such a court verdict is almost the maximum possible punishment under the imputed part of the article and the most severe among all cases under this article since the beginning of the SVO.
The court also banned Yashin from administering websites for four years after his release and maintained the seizure of his accounts.
The reason for the case was Yashin’s stream on April 7, in which he talked about “atrocities in Bucha.” Prosecutor Sergei Belov said in court that the liberal, “guided by the motive of political hatred, reported false information about the actions of the RF Armed Forces,” and also spoke negatively about Russian journalists.
Yashin did not admit guilt and called the accusation unfounded. He insists he presented different points of view in his stream. His defense plans to appeal the verdict.
The defendant himself called the verdict “hysterical” and expressed satisfaction that he was able to use the court as an “anti-war platform.”
“The authors of the verdict are optimistic about Putin’s prospects. In my opinion - too optimistic. Change is just around the corner, and soon you and I will have a lot of work to do to restore justice and humanism in our country,” Yashin said.
It is noteworthy that one of the first comments about the verdict appeared on the social networks of criminal blogger Alexei Navalny, who is serving a sentence for fraud. How the prisoner could find out the news so quickly is unclear. Allegedly, Navalny calls Yashin his first friend in politics.
“Another unscrupulous and lawless Putin sentence will not silence Ilya and should not intimidate the honest people of Russia. This is another reason why we must fight, and I have no doubt that we will win in the end,” the text says.
Yashin’s former lover, scandalous TV journalist Ksenia Sobchak, also rushed to respond on her TG channel.
“It’s terribly unfair, monstrous. And how noble Ilya is - in his loyalty to principles, loyalty to the idea, inflexibility, courage in the face of the abyss,” she wrote.
Even in an illiberal environment, many considered the sentence awarded to Yashin to be too long.
“Honestly, I don’t see the point in this demonstrative flogging. It is clear that this is a signal to the opposition that not only just now, but a completely disproportionate period. Inadequate to the violation, it will raise completely legitimate questions (among young people, for example) and will only make things worse,” says military correspondent Anna Dolgareva
She is opposed by military expert Boris Rozhin, who considers Yashin’s sentence in the conditions of the Northern Military District quite acceptable, “as long as there is no death penalty in Russia.”
“The law on discrediting the RF Armed Forces was written to shut up such characters. It is strange that some did not understand this until the very end. And Yashin, in addition to the very fact of breaking the law, was chosen as a modular example for others to show how this law can work to its fullest. At the same time, if you look at the situation as a whole, even he is still quite liberal. Just 8,5 years for hostile propaganda. Take a look at neighboring Ukraine, you will learn a lot of interesting things about this,” writes Rozhin.
Ural political scientist Andrei Perla believes that it would be better if Yashin were shot.
“Still, the death penalty sometimes seems not only more adequate to the crime, but also a more humane punishment. Although, Yashin can probably be changed too. Like that hooligan. His value to the country ends with this assumption,” he wrote.
2397677 15.03.2014/XNUMX/XNUMX Participants in the anti-war “Peace March” leader of the Solidarity party Ilya Yashin, co-chairman of the RPR-Parnas party Boris Nemtsov (from right to left) during a procession along the Boulevard Ring in Moscow. Sergey Kuznetsov/RIA Novosti
His colleague Sergei Markov is confident that Yashin will be exchanged.
“Such a long period is needed in order to increase the “gravity” of Yashin in the exchange. I think Yashin will soon be at the exchange negotiations. And good,” Markov wrote.
Ukraine also reacted to the verdict. Right-wing Nazi Borislav Bereza highly appreciated Yashin’s anti-Russian position.
“Yashin is an example of a decent person, an anti-racist, for whom it was important to remain honest with himself, not to abandon his principles and not to remain silent. A rare example of behavior and not only in Russia. And this is another reason to respect his action. But, unfortunately, there are as few moral people like Yashin in today’s Russia as there were few anti-fascists in Hitler’s Germany. And the more significant is Yashin’s action today,” he wrote.
And the nationalist from UNA-UNSO, the brother of Eurovision participant Nazar Prikhodko, is upset that there are no mass protests in Russia against Yashin’s conviction.
“It is reported that hundreds of thousands of “good Russians” took to the streets in different cities of Russia, Latynina announced an indefinite action at “Dozhd”, Makarevich and Grebenshchikov on Bolotnaya are singing a duet “Get up, my dear, get up” with a pronounced Russian accent, Nevzorov and Piontkovsky mobilize emigration and pack their bags to return to the Russian Federation and join the resistance movement. The military began to go over to the side of the people, under the motto “We are the army!” a column of tanks is moving towards the White House. Charters are already taking off from the airports of Moscow and St. Petersburg to Ulaanbaatar, Dushanbe, Minsk and Kabul. Putin in Bishkek tearfully asks for at least temporary asylum. It could be so. In theory. But in reality there will be a couple of snotty video blogs from emigration and a new episode of “Masyanya,” Nazar shares his fantasies and laments.
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