Russia Imprisons A Blogger Who Criticized The Military.

According to Russian news agencies, a Moscow court condemned the creator of an opposition social media site on Tuesday to almost nine years in prison for disseminating “false” information about the army.

Using the social media platform Telegram, Dmitry Ivanov, a 23-year-old former math and cybernetics student at Moscow State University, founded and maintained a channel critical of the administration.

According to reports, he posted articles that were critical of what Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, refers to as Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The decision is the most recent in a string of decisions made under legislation that opponents claim is intended to make opposing the Russian involvement a crime.

A Moscow court “found Ivanov guilty… and sentenced him to eight years and six months in jail,” the court’s press office was cited as saying by the TASS news agency.

Nine years had been sought by the prosecution.

“You have to realize that Putin is not Russia. The independent news outlet Mediazona paraphrased Ivanov as declaring in court, “Tens of millions of Russians are against this criminal war.

“This is a dark era in our history, but it has always been like this before daybreak,” continued Ivanov, who has been in pre-trial prison since June 2022.

According to Mediazona, he was given two brief jail terms last year for postings on his Telegram channel.