Russian doctor jailed for five years over alleged Ukraine war remarks

November 12

Ahead of the verdict, Nadezhda Buyanova was led, handcuffed, into the courtroom and locked inside a glass and metal cage.

Through the glass, the 68-year-old paediatrician told me what she thought of her predicament.

“It’s absurd, just absurd,” the doctor said.

“I can’t get my head around what’s happening to me. Perhaps later I’ll be able to.”

The paediatrician had been reported to police by the mother of a 7-year-old boy she’d been treating.

The woman had claimed that the doctor had made negative comments about the boy’s father, a Russian soldier, who had been killed fighting in Ukraine and that the doctor had said Russian servicemen there were legitimate targets.

Ms Buyanova denies making such comments and there is no audio or video recording to prove she made them.

But back in February, she was arrested and charged with spreading false information about the Russian armed forces. After a short spell under house arrest, she was placed in pre-trial detention.

Now Ms Buyanova was in the dock and about to learn her fate.

Before the judge entered, court officials ordered camera crews out of the courtroom. Along with other journalists, we were ushered into the corridor.

Minutes later the door to the courtroom opened again.

“Five-and-a-half years!” cried one of Ms Buyanova’s supporters in the public gallery. “She’s been sent to a penal colony for five-and-a-half years!”

“The sentence is monstrously harsh,” the doctor’s lawyer, Oskar Cherdzhiyev, told me.

“We didn’t expect this, even given what is happening today [in Russia]. Just a few words proved enough to put someone behind bars for such a long time.”

Alina, one of the doctor’s group of supporters in court, said: “For me it was important that Nadezhda saw that a lot of us came today, so that, if a miracle didn’t happen – and we were all still hoping for a miracle – it would be just that little bit easier for her.”

“It’s very difficult to speak about this. We’re all in shock.”

The law against spreading false information about the army is one of several harsh pieces of legislation adopted in Russia since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the aim of silencing or punishing criticism of the war.

The imprisonment of a Moscow paediatrician is the latest sign that, for Russia, a war abroad is fuelling repression at home.

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