Russian court jails activist who opposes Ukraine war for 8.5 years

A Russian opposition activist who used social media to condemn the way Moscow is waging its war in Ukraine received an eight-and-a-half year jail sentence
on Tuesday after a Moscow court found him guilty of spreading false information about the army.
Dmitry Ivanov, who ran a protest channel on the Telegram social network for students of Moscow State University, denied any wrongdoing. Ivanov told the court he stood by his original statements which he said were factually accurate.
The verdict, published by his lawyer Maria Eismont on Facebook, said Ivanov would serve out his sentence in a penal colony and that he had also been banned for four years from being an administrator for Internet or social media sites.
Shortly after sending tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine just over a year ago, Russia introduced sweeping wartime censorship laws which have since been used to silence dissenting voices across society.