By Mark Trevelyan
LONDON, Aug 17 (Reuters) – A senior member of Russia’s liberal Yabloko party was sentenced on Monday to 11 years and one month in a penal colony for condemning the war in Ukraine, which he described at his trial as a catastrophe for Russia.
Lev Shlosberg, the party’s deputy chairman, was accused of discrediting Russia’s armed forces and spreading false information about them.
In a closing speech to the court in the city of Pskov last Friday, he maintained his innocence, said he was the victim of a political trial and repeated his call for an immediate ceasefire in the 4-1/2-year war.
The verdict, published by the court, follows an August 10 decision by Russia’s Supreme Court to ban Yabloko from taking part in a parliamentary election next month.
Yabloko, the only registered political party to call for an end to the war, has come under heavy pressure from the authorities in the run-up to the election, where any sizeable anti-war vote could have embarrassed the Kremlin.
Shlosberg used his closing speech to deliver a searing indictment of the war.
“The lives of countless thousands of people have been cut short during this time. Sooner or later, the precise and complete death toll – with names included – will be made public, and the entire nation will shudder at this list of martyrs,” he said, according to a transcript by Mediazona.
Mediazona and the BBC Russian service have recorded the names of at least 239,354 Russian military dead, based on publicly available records.
Based on records of the estates of dead people, which they used to calculate excess mortality among Russian men, they estimate the true toll at more than 350,000.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine publishes up-to-date casualty figures.
Moscow says it is fighting to address security threats from NATO and Ukraine, and to defend the rights of Russian-speakers living in Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies reject these as a false premise for launching the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two.
(Reporting by Mark TrevelyanEditing by Gareth Jones)
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