Vladimir Kara-Murza, a member of the Russian opposition, was given a 25-year prison term for opposing the conflict in Ukraine, as Slovakia sends fighter jets to that nation and three EU nations forbid Ukrainian grain due to market issues.Â
Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the crime of denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, in a particularly severe penalty even by Russia’s standards of repression. Kara-Murza survived two poisoning attempts that he blamed on the Kremlin and was arrested after condemning the Russian invasion in a March 2022 speech. The sentence is much longer than the combined 11 1/2 years from two convictions handed down to noted Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who was arrested at a Moscow airport upon returning to Russia in January 2021. Fellow Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin was also sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison in 2022 after being convicted of spreading false information about the Russian military. Meanwhile, Slovakia has delivered the remaining nine of the 13 pledged MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, while three EU member countries ban Ukrainian grain over market concerns.Â
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2023/04/17/ukraine-russia-war-live-updates/11682148002/Â
