New York, August 30, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the sentencing Friday of Russian journalist Sergey Mikhaylov to eight years in prison on “fake news” charges and calls on Russian authorities to release him immediately.
“The sentencing of journalist Sergey Mikhaylov to eight years in prison on what Russian authorities label as ‘fake news’ is another sign of the Kremlin’s fear of journalists telling the truth about the 2022 civilian massacre in Russian-occupied Bucha,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s program coordinator for Europe and Central Asia. “Russian authorities should not contest Mikhaylov’s appeal and stop their prosecution of independent journalists.”
A city court in Gorno-Altaysk, the capital of the Siberian republic of Altai, found Mikhaylov, a publisher of independent Siberian newspaper Listok detained since April 2022, guilty of disseminating “knowingly false information” about the Russian army “under the guise of reliable information” over the information distributed through Listok’s Telegram channel and website about the killing of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities.
The court also banned Mikhaylov from working as a journalist and administering websites for four years after his release.
Mikhaylov, who plans to appeal, denied the charges and told the court that he wanted “to reveal the truth” about the Russian-Ukrainian war, protect Russians from state propaganda, and reduce the number of war casualties.
Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor blocked Listok’s website in February 2022, and law enforcement raided the outlet’s editorial office and several employees’ homes on the day of Mikhaylov’s arrest.
Mikhaylov was one of the first journalists detained under the March 2022 law against publishing “fake news” about the army following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russia is the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with CPJ’s most recent prison census documenting at least 22 journalists, including Mikhaylov, in prison on December 1, 2023.