A Russian court sentenced gastronomic writer Pavel Siutkin to six years in prison for spreading information considered false about the Russian Army's actions in the war against Ukraine. The sentence was handed down in a context of growing repression in Russia against any form of dissenting opinion about the conflict.
Siutkin was arrested due to the content published on his personal channel on the Telegram platform. Russian authorities considered that the writer spread false information about Russian military operations in Ukraine, an accusation frequently used against government critics.
The six-year prison sentence represents a significant penalty for the crime of disseminating so-called "fake news" about the army, a crime created in Russia after the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This legislation has been used to silence dissenting voices and journalists who question the official Kremlin narrative about the conflict.
