Russia Sentences Teenager to 12 Years in Prison for Sending Money to kyiv's Army

Russia on Tuesday sentenced a 19-year-old man to 12 years in prison for allegedly giving money to kyiv's forces.

In addition, the sentence of a documentary filmmaker for denouncing the Ukrainian offensive was doubled.

For more than two years, Moscow has been waging an unprecedented crackdown on dissent, comparable to Soviet levels of repression.

In the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, a court sentenced a 19-year-old to 12 years in prison for “treason”, Russian state media reported.

The FSB security service said the teenager sent money to help kyiv's military buy drones and food for the troops, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The defendant was reportedly arrested at an airport while trying to leave Russia.

“The Rostov Regional Court found the man guilty and sentenced him to 12 years in a strict penal colony,” the FSB said, quoted by RIA Novosti.

Russia regularly sentences people it accuses of giving money to Ukrainian forces to long prison terms.

In St. Petersburg, activist and documentary filmmaker Vsevolod Korolev's sentence was more than doubled to seven years after prosecutors appealed his initial three-year prison sentence for criticizing the Ukrainian offensive on social media.

Korolev has been in pre-trial detention since July 2022, accused of making “false” statements about the massacres of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine.

“Korolev considered his conviction illegal and unfounded,” the court's press service said, while prosecutors wanted his sentence increased to nine years.

“The appeals court changed its decision, increasing Korolev's sentence to seven years in prison.”

Before his arrest, Korolev made videos about people imprisoned for speaking out against the Kremlin's offensive.

In Moscow, state media reported that a man was arrested for having a tattoo featuring a phrase mocking the Russian military, invented in Ukraine at the start of the offensive.

Russian police later released a video confession, still a rare practice, in which he was forced to publicly apologize.

Russian media reported that the man was Stepan Zimin, an activist who served a prison sentence for participating in mass protests against the Kremlin in 2012.

Another St. Petersburg court has ruled to confiscate the property, land and car belonging to exiled journalist and Kremlin critic Alexander Nevzorov and his wife.