Reported the attack in Mariupol, six years to the Russian journalist

(ANSA) - ROME, FEBRUARY 15 - A Russian court has sentenced journalist Maria Ponomarenko to six years in prison for posting on social media the news of Moscow's air raid on the Ukrainian theater in Mariupol last March, in which hundreds of civilians died.

The BBC reports it online.

    The court in Barnaul, Siberia, found her guilty of spreading "fake news" under the law introduced to stifle dissent over the invasion of Ukraine.

In addition, she was banned from journalism for five years.

    Ponomarenko, 44, who wrote for the RusNews website, was arrested last April, weeks after the bombing, for publishing a post claiming that the attack on Mariupol had been carried out by Russian warplanes, despite the Russian Defense Ministry had denied the news.

"No totalitarian regime was ever as strong as it was before its collapse," she said at the time of sentencing.

(HANDLE).