A Moscow woman will spend nearly a decade in prison for anti-war social media posts written more than two years ago and attracting fewer than 70 views, according to the Russian state news agency NIA Novosti.
Anasasia Berezhinskaya, 43, was sentenced 8 years prison time for "discrediting" the Russian army, "spreading false information about the military motivated by political hatred," and "justifying terrorism," Novaya Gazeta reported.
In a May 2022 post, Berezhinskaya criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin on VK, a popular social media platform in Russia.
"More than 4,000 innocent people are dead ... Yet you still consider Putin the murderer to be your president," she wrote.
"Putin said they were Nazis and terrorists," she continued, questioning the nation's support of the war in Ukraine. "And you're fine with this? For some reason, the entire civilized world is not fine with this except you."
In a November post, she said that "Russia had already lost the war" and predicted that Putin would be "tried by an international tribunal just like Hitler and his henchmen were."
"Shoot this stupid bastard Putin, how much more killing of civilians do we have to put up with?" she wrote under one post, inspiring the charge of "justifying terrorism."
Berezhinskaya admitted to making the posts but argued in a previous statement they were written in frustration and not intended as calls to action, explaining she had been "upset" and "worried about the civilian population," and intended the posts only "for personal use," Mediazona reported.
A mother to two children, Berezhinskaya's insistence that she respects the Russian army and vows "to be a worthy citizen," did not lighten her sentence.
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