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Maria Ponomarenko at the court hearing
Photo: Aleksandr Lizratov / ddp / Kommersant Photo / Polaris
The Russian journalist Maria Ponomarenko reported critically about her homeland's attack on Ukraine.
She was arrested in April last year and admitted to a psychiatric ward in Siberia.
Now a court in central Russia's Barnaul has sentenced the journalist to six years in prison, according to Russian media.
Ponomarenko was found guilty of allegedly discrediting the Russian armed forces with "fake" social media posts.
According to her defense attorney Dmitry Shitov, she was also given a five-year ban from working as a reporter and was banned from any online activities.
The journalist was arrested in Saint Petersburg in April last year.
She wrote for the RusNews portal and reported on Telegram about the wartime atrocities committed by Russian soldiers, including the bombing of the Mariupol theater.
"It's impossible to remain silent when you know about the deaths of thousands of innocent people," she wrote on the network at the time.
"No totalitarian regime was ever as strong as it was shortly before its fall"
In her defense speech in court, the journalist denounced arbitrary justice in Russia.
"What's really going on in our country?" she asked in the courtroom.
"If there's a war, call the war by its name." She couldn't understand why she was being censored.
Ponomarenko is referring to a widely criticized law that came into force in Russia shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On the basis of this, media and individuals can be severely fined for disseminating "discrediting of the Russian army".
Practically all news that does not reflect the official Kremlin account of the war in Ukraine can fall under this formulation.
Among other things, the word "war" is forbidden in reporting in Russia - it can officially only be described in Moscow as a "military special operation".
She will not be afraid of the years in prison, Ponomarenko said in her defense speech.
"No totalitarian regime has ever been as strong as it was just before it fell," she said to the Kremlin.
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