A Moscow court sentenced Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky on Monday to eight years in prison, finding him guilty of deliberately spreading false information about Russia’s armed forces.

Glukhovsky, who is not in Russia and who was tried in absentia, is best known for writing a science fiction series and is the latest artist to be handed a prison term in a relentless crackdown on dissent in Russia. On Friday, imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was convicted on charges of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in prison.

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, lawmakers passed a bill that imposes prison sentences of up to 15 years on those spreading “fake” information that goes against the Russian government’s narrative on the war.

Glukhovsky was found guilty of posting texts and videos on his social media channels that accused Russian servicemen of committing crimes in Ukraine and that Russian prosecutors said were fake.

In April 2022, when he was already outside Russia, Glukhovsky wrote that the war in Ukraine, “unleashed by Putin is becoming more terrible and inhuman every day, and the pretexts under which it was started look more and more insignificant and false.”

Glukhovsky is a Russian journalist and writer who rose to prominence as an author of a widely popular post-apocalyptic novel, Metro 2033, which was followed by several sequels. Glukhovsky has been vocally critical of the Kremlin and was labeled a “foreign agent” in October 2022.

Also on Monday, Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, announced that the politician was placed in solitary confinement immediately after he was convicted on extremism charges.  

Yarmysh said Navalny has been placed in solitary confinement for two weeks, bringing his total time in confinement to 207 days. In addition to his 19-year sentence, Navalny is already serving a nine-year term on a variety of charges that he says were politically motivated.
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