A court in Moscow on Thursday sentenced a 59-year-old nurse to eight years in prison for social media posts opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Olga Menshikh was accused of spreading “fake” information about the military with two VKontakte posts that condemned Russian strikes on Vinnytsia, Ukraine that killed 28 people in July 2022 and Russian troops' mass atrocities against civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.
Menshikh denied her guilt, with Mediazona reporting she had 15 followers and that her account may have been breached.
Moscow’s Dorogimolovsky District Court found Menshikh guilty of spreading “fake news” about the Russian military’s actions abroad and handed her an eight-year sentence in a prison colony.
Menshikh was an anesthetic nurse at the Pirogov National and Medical Surgical Center, where Mediazona said she had treated Russian soldiers wounded in Ukraine.
The outlet said Menshikh had faced several administrative arrests and fines for anti-war social media posts and her support for the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
Russia has cracked down on anti-war protests, the independent press and social media platforms since launching what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine in 2022.
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