Muscovite sentenced to five years in labor camp for criticizing war in Ukraine

He was interviewed outside a Moscow metro station, by Radio Liberty, at the time when she could still operate in Russia, in July 2022, six months after the start of the invasion of Ukraine. The man interviewed said that “this war was started by Putin and his clique”that “nothing justifies it” and above all, he denounced the bombardment of civilian populations and the massacre of Boutcha committed by the Russian army. This sidewalk microphone, broadcast in video format, was therefore very easily found by the Russian security services, who are particularly efficient in this area. Youri Kokhovets accepted his comments before partially retracting.

A significant case in the Russian context of repression and censorship

His case has unfortunately become classic; five years in prison for simple words, that no longer surprises anyone in Russia. The law on discrediting the armed forces allows for up to ten years. These are very heavy sentences that we no longer saw even at the end of the USSR. For the authorities, Yuri Kokhovets crossed the red line by directly implicating Vladimir Putin and by evoking Boutcha, which is a manipulation of Westerners for the Kremlin.

But Yuri Kokhovets also became the first Russian prosecuted for responding to foreign media. And his case has launched a debate about protecting Russian citizens who agree to speak to Western media without censoring themselves. The franceinfo correspondents in Moscow are themselves confronted with this regularly. Anonymity has become almost systematic today, when it comes to talking about the war with Russians, or even sometimes about something that only has a distant connection with power. The consequences can be legal, but they can also be professional, you can lose your job for a few words. Anonymity is never satisfactory in journalism, but it is nevertheless becoming the rule today in Russia.