Russia on Tuesday sentenced four journalists it said were associated with late opposition leader Alexei Navalny to five and a half years in a penal colony, intensifying a crackdown on press freedom and Kremlin critics.
Navalny — Putin’s main opponent — was declared an “extremist” by Russian authorities, a ruling that remains in force despite his death in an Arctic penal colony on February 16, 2024.
Moscow also banned Navalny’s organisations as “extremist” shortly before launching its 2022 Ukraine offensive and has ruthlessly targeted those it deems to have links to him.
A judge sentenced the reporters — Antonina Kravtsova, Konstantin Gabov, Sergei Karelin, and Artem Kriger — who all covered Navalny to “five years and six months in a general-regime penal colony”, an AFP journalist heard.
They were found guilty of “participating in an extremist group” after being arrested last year.
The trial proceeded behind closed doors at Moscow’s Nagatinsky district court with only the sentencing open to the media, as has become typical for political cases in Russia amid its Ukraine offensive.
Around a hundred supporters, journalists and Western diplomats came to the court for the verdicts.
Supporters cheered and clapped as the defendants were led in and out and one shouted: “You are the pride of Russia!”
“They will all appeal” their sentences, said Ivan Novikov, the lawyer defending Kriger.
“The sentence is unlawful and unjust,” said a second lawyer for Kriger, Yelena Sheremetyeva.
“No evidence was presented that these guys committed any crimes, their guilt was not proven,” Gabov’s lawyer Irina Biryukova said.
The press secretary of Navalny’s widow Yulia, Kira Yarmysh, wrote on X that the journalists were convicted simply “for doing their job”.
“Antonina, Artem, Sergei and Konstantin are real journalists and just honest, brave people. They should be released immediately,” she wrote.
Germany’s foreign ministry said on X that the sentences showed that “in Putin’s Russia, the freedom of the press enshrined in the Constitution is worth nothing”.
Since Navalny’s still unexplained death in an Arctic prison last year, Russian authorities have heavily targeted his family and associates.
In January, three lawyers who had defended him in court were sentenced to several years in prison.
Moscow has also escalated its decade-long crackdown on independent media amid its military offensive on Ukraine.
Shortly after ordering troops into Ukraine in 2022, Moscow passed sweeping military censorship laws that ban criticism of its army, forcing most of the country’s independent media to leave the country.
The journalists sentenced on Tuesday rejected the charges of being associated with an extremist group.
Kravtsova, 34, is a photographer who worked for the independent SOTAvision outlet and uses the pen name Antonina Favorskaya.
She had covered Navalny’s trials for two years and filmed his last appearance via video-link in court just two days before his death.
Video correspondents Gabov and Karelin are accused of preparing photos and video material for Navalny’s social media channels.
Both had worked at times with international outlets — Gabov with Reuters and Karelin with the Associated Press and Deutsche Welle.
Kriger, 24, the youngest among the accused, covered political trials and protests for SOTAvision.
After the verdict, he said in court: “Everything will be fine. Everything will change. Those who sentenced me will be sitting here instead of me.”
