A Moscow court sentenced rights activist Oleg Orlov to two-and-a-half years in prison for “discrediting the Russian armed forces” and “protesting against the war in Ukraine,” online Russian newspaper the Moscow Times reported Tuesday.
“I have committed no crime. I am being tried for a media article I wrote in which I called the political regime that’s been put in place in Russia totalitarian and fascist,” said Orlov, co-chair of the Russian human rights group Memorial, in a statement. “I wrote it over a year ago. At the time, some of my friends thought I was blowing things out of proportion.”
Orlov’s imprisonment is part of a broad crackdown by the Kremlin on rights activists and political opponents. Alexei Navalny, long seen as the most significant political opponent to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, died in prison earlier this month, prompting the West to impose sanctions on the Russian regime.
