Russia sentences US journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to 6.5 years in prison

A court in the Russian republic of Tatarstan has sentenced Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual-U.S.-Russian journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), to six and a half years in prison for “spreading false information” about the Russian armed forces, the Associated Press reported July 22.

According to court records, the sentence was handed down on July 19 in a secret trial, AP wrote. The case was launched in response to a book, “Saying no to war. 40 stories of Russians who opposed the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” published in November 2022, RFE/RLE reported in December 2023.

Kurmasheva has been in pre-trial detention since October 2023. This detention has been extended several times by the Russian court on charges of violating the law on so-called “foreign agents”.

According to RFE/RL, she lived with her family in Prague and traveled to Russia in May for a family emergency. When Kurmasheva tried to leave Russia the following month, authorities confiscated both her Russian and U.S. passports, reportedly on the grounds that she had not registered her U.S. passport.

Kurmasheva has been unable to leave Russia since then. RFE/RL reported that she was charged with the foreign agent offense while she was waiting for her passports to be returned.

Kurmasheva’s arrest and extended pre-trial detention have been widely condemned by RFE/RL, the EU, Western countries and a host of NGOs, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Amnesty International and others.

Kurmasheva is the second US journalist to be convicted in Russia since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested in Russia in March 2023. Also on July 19, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison on what are widely believed to be trumped-up espionage charges.

Russia Convicts US Journalist in Absentia for Comments on Ukraine War

According to the New York Times, Gessen was convicted by the Basmanny District Court for spreading “false information” about the Russian military. He described the carnage that Russian forces carried out in Bucha and surrounding communities during a 2022 interview with a Russian journalist.