MOSCOW — A court in Moscow has sentenced in absentia a popular food blogger and magazine founder over her online posts about Russia’s ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The Basmanny district court sentenced the Ukrainian-born Nika Belotserkovskaya on February 6 after finding her guilty of distributing “false information” about Russia’s armed forces.
Belotserkovskaya, who founded the St. Petersburg magazine and website Sobaka, currently lives in France.
Russia’s Investigative Committee in March 2022 opened a criminal case against Belotserkovskaya, who blogs under the name Belonika, for allegedly spreading false news about the Russian Army on her Instagram account, which now has 1.3 million subscribers.
She was accused of publishing several Instagram posts containing “deliberately false information about the armed forces of the Russian Federation’s destruction of cities and civilians in Ukraine, including children, during a special military operation.” Some of the posts cited the coverage of the war by Western news agencies and media outlets.
In May last year, Russian authorities added her to the nation’s wanted list and issued an arrest warrant for her. Belotserkovskaya then wrote on the Internet that it meant she is “a decent person.”
That was followed up in in June, with the impounding of all of her property in Russia.
Russia’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, has strictly restricted access to information about the war in Ukraine launched by Russia in late February last year and directed media to describe events in Ukraine as a “special military operation” and not a war or an invasion.
Following the opening of the criminal case against her in March, Belotserkovskaya transferred ownership of Sobaka to employees.
Source: rferl