Russia court sentences journalist in absentia to 8 years over spreading false information on armed forces News
Svetlov Artem, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Russia court sentences journalist in absentia to 8 years over spreading false information on armed forces

A Moscow court on Monday sentenced Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen in absentia to eight years in prison under Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code over charges of spreading false information on Russian armed forces. The court also banned Gessen from managing online resources for four years.

Russia issued an arrest warrant in December 2023 for Gessen and ordered Gessen’s arrest in absentia afterward. The Russian Investigative Committee previously opened a case into Gessen on August 31, 2023, investigating them for allegedly “discrediting the Russian Armed Forces” during the violence seen in Bucha, Ukraine in 2022.

Gessen holds dual US-Russian citizenship and lives in the US. They are a journalist from New York and were prominently featured in The New Yorker. While Gessen may not face imprisonment in Russia unless they travel to a jurisdiction that has an extradition treaty with Russia, this may create travel difficulties for Gessen. Gessen described this as an attempt to intimidate in a July letter addressed to Russia’s Basmanny District Court.

After the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation were amended to establish administrative and criminal punishments for spreading false information about the Russian military.

The prosecution of Gessen is part of a larger crackdown on dissent in Russia since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Earlier this year, Russia designated author Boris Akunin as a foreign agent and many famous cultural figures who were designated as foreign agents fled the country.

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