Russian activist Oleg Orlov jailed for 2.5 years for criticizing Ukraine war
A veteran human rights campaigner who has criticized the war in Ukraine was convicted by a Moscow court on Tuesday of “repeatedly defaming” the Russian military and sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
Oleg Orlov, 70, co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, dismissed the case against him as politically motivated and said in his closing statement: “I regret nothing and I have no regrets. No regrets.” .” He also again condemned the war.
Following the verdict, Orlov was handcuffed and taken into custody, followed by a retrial in which he was previously convicted and fined. Prosecutors had appealed for a harsher sentence, underscoring President Vladimir Putin’s government’s low tolerance for criticism of the war.
According to the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona, prosecutors claimed that Orlov was motivated to write the anti-war articles by hostility toward “traditional Russian spiritual, moral and patriotic values” and hatred of the military.
In a statement, Memorial called Orlov’s sentencing “an attempt to suppress the voice of the human rights movement in Russia and any criticism of the state.” It vowed to continue its work.
The decision was followed by a crowd of dozens of supporters, including 18 Western diplomats, Mediazona reported.
“I am concerned and worried by today’s result. Oleg Orlov has personally fought for the rights of Russians for more than 45 years, US Ambassador Lynn Tracy said in a statement. “In the past, his efforts were recognized at the highest level. “They are being closed to them in today’s Russia.”
In October 2023, a Moscow court convicted Orlov and fined him 150,000 rubles (about $1,500 at the time), much less than the lengthy prison sentences received by others who criticized the war. It was punishment.
Both the defense and the prosecution appealed, and a higher court canceled the fine, sending the case back to prosecutors. The new trial, which began earlier this month, is another step in the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent after sending troops to Ukraine in February 2022.
Also on Tuesday, a court in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s largely Muslim republic of Chechnya, sentenced a man to 3 1/2 years in prison for publicly burning a Quran in front of a mosque. Russian state news agency TASS reported that Nikita Zhuravlev admitted that he did so on the instructions of Ukrainian special services in exchange for payment.
In September 2023, Chechnya’s authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov posted a video of his son beating Zhuravlev in custody. Kadyrov praised his son for “defending his religion”.
Tuesday also marked the ninth anniversary of the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, a charismatic Russian opposition leader. The 55-year-old former deputy prime minister was shot dead while walking on a bridge adjacent to the Kremlin on the night of February 27, 2015.
A temporary memorial on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge where Nemtsov was assassinated is still visited by mourners who leave bouquets of flowers. His death was a blow to the political opposition, as was the death in prison this month of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
An officer from Kremlin-backed Kadyrov’s security forces was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing the shot that killed Nemtsov. Four other people were sentenced to 11 to 19 years for their involvement.