Maria Ponomarenko, a correspondent for independent news website RusNews, was serving a six-year prison sentence on charges of spreading “fake” information about the Russian army when she was sentenced to 22 additional months in prison in March 2025. She was given an additional 22-month sentence in June 2026. With this third sentence, she now has two years and three months left in prison.
Russian authorities detained her on April 23, 2022, according to her outlet and multiple news reports. According to Sibir.Realii, the Siberia-focused project run by the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Ponomarenko was charged under Article 207.3.2.e of the criminal code, which bans disseminating false information on the basis of “political, ideological, racial, national, or religious hatred.”
Authorities alleged that she was connected to the now-shuttered Telegram news channel, “No Censorship,” and that she published a post about the Russian bombing of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to those news reports and the banned human rights organization Memorial. Authorities claimed that Ponomarenko published false information that the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out an airstrike on the Drama Theater in Mariupol, even though she was aware that the Ministry of Defense and other official sources had denied responsibility.
On March 4, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin enacted amendments to the criminal code that impose prison terms for spreading “fake” information, specifically about the Russian military, as CPJ documented and media reported, in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Ponomarenko’s lawyer, Dmitry Chitov, told CPJ via messaging app that the journalist denied the charges. Chitov said that according to Ponomarenko, this criminal case could be connected to her “previous activities,” but did not specify which ones. Ponomarenko also claimed authorities had not shown that she was connected to the post, according to independent news outlet SOTA.
On June 16, 2022, SOTA reported that Ponomarenko claimed that the charges against her were in retaliation for her attempts in 2020 to draw attention to the lack of housing for orphans in her hometown of Barnaul. RusNews journalist Irina Salomatova told CPJ via messaging app that Ponomarenko had joined RusNews in the spring of 2021. “The scandal with housing for orphans took place in 2020, even before she came to us. Maria revealed this corruption scheme as an activist and blogger,” Salomatova said.
Ponomarenko covered protests in Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg against the Russian invasion of Ukraine for RusNews, and she was previously briefly detained and fined in March 2022 over her coverage of anti-war rallies.
Authorities searched Ponomarenko’s home on April 25, 2022, took testimony from her 16-year-old and 13-year-old daughters, and transferred the journalist to Pretrial Detention Center No. 5 in St. Petersburg two days later, according to multiple news reports by SOTA.
On July 15, 2022, SOTA reported that Ponomarenko was fined 15,000 rubles ($245) for a September 2021 comment on TikTok that the authorities considered “humiliating” for police officers.
Two days before, Sibir.Realii had reported that Ponomarenko was forcibly injected with an “unknown substance” while held at a psychiatric hospital and could not remember anything for three days.
On September 16, 2022, Ponomarenko said in a court hearing that her detention conditions led her to cut open her veins, her outlet reported. “The only person I can injure in a state of hysteria and depression is myself,” Ponomarenko told the court. During that hearing, she said that she has been diagnosed with a psychological disorder and suffers from claustrophobia. She also said that did not receive psychiatric care.
According to RusNews, Ponomarenko was placed in solitary confinement from September 6 to 13, 2022, for breaking a taped-up window in her cell.
On November 14, 2022, the court moved Ponomarenko to house arrest, according to her outlet, which specified that she was “in good spirits” during the hearing. In January 2023, Ponomarenko was sent back to a pretrial detention center from house arrest at her own request due to an “unfavorable home environment,” RusNews reported.
On February 15, 2023, a court in Barnaul convicted Ponomarenko of spreading false information about the Russian military and sentenced her to six years in prison, along with a five-year ban on journalistic activities following her release. On April 20, authorities upheld Ponomarenko’s sentence, according to media reports.
On October 4, 2023, RusNews reported that, shortly after her transfer to Prison No. 6 in the Siberian village of Shipunovo, Ponomarenko was placed in solitary confinement for 25 days for “lying down during the day” when she fainted and for being unable to get out of her bed because of pain in her lower back.
A psychological and psychiatric examination revealed that Ponomarenko has a form of personality disorder and needs medical psychiatric assistance, which she is denied, her outlet said.
Chitov told CPJ in October 2023 that he had last seen Ponomarenko on October 5, 2023. Two days later, RusNews called her situation “critical” and said that “her physical and psychological condition is deteriorating sharply.” On the same day, supporters of the journalist launched an online petition against the violation of her rights in prison.
On November 2, 2023, RusNews reported that Russian authorities had opened a new criminal case against Ponomarenko for allegedly using violence against prison staff. The journalist, who denied the charges, allegedly resisted being escorted to a disciplinary commission by two prison employees, according to human rights website OVD-Info. Chitov told CPJ that the new case against Ponomarenko was opened on October 26, and that she was formally charged on December 8.
During hearings held in 2024, Ponomarenko threatened to kill herself and declared a hunger strike, Chitov said, adding, “Unfortunately, we believe that Masha is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.” RusNews chief editor Sergey Aynbinder said he recently learned that Ponomarenko was forbidden to write about her prison conditions. “We learned from her acquaintances that relations with the staff of the prison and the pretrial detention center continued to deteriorate, and that Maria was placed in a punishment cell too often, which severely undermined her mental and physical condition,” he said. “At one point, Maria was given medication to help her maintain her mental balance, but we do not know if she is taking it now.”
During a hearing on March 24, 2025, she spoke about a recent suicide attempt, which she said was the result of bullying by prison staff. She said she had been sent to a punishment cell 13 times in the past year. Her lawyer said the journalist attempted suicide three times between July 30 and August 9, 2025.
On March 27, 2025, a court in Russia’s southern Altai Krai convicted Ponomarenko of using violence against prison staff and sentenced her to an additional 22 months in prison. The sentence was upheld on July 11, 2025. With the latest sentence, and considering time served, Ponomarenko has three years left in prison, RusNews reported.
However, on August 31, 2025, a group of Ponomarenko’s supporters reported on Telegram that a third criminal case — again for allegedly using violence against prison staff — had been opened against her.
On June 3, 2026, another court in Altai Krai convicted Ponomarenko of using violence against prison staff and sentenced her to an additional 22 months behind bars.
During a May 25 court hearing, Ponomarenko said the new charges against her stemmed from an incident in which a prison employee had touched her shoulder. She said she stepped aside, pushed his hand away, and asked him not to touch her. According to the journalist, the employee then allegedly slammed her face against a table, threw her to the ground, knelt on her back, and dragged her by the hair.
During the same hearing, Ponomarenko said she had repeatedly requested a transfer from a rat-infested cell, where she had to cope with constant noise and dust from nearby construction work. She said the conditions aggravated her claustrophobia and headaches, and had caused suicidal thoughts.
On June 17, 2026, a Ponomarenko support group reported on Telegram that she had “inadvertently overheard a conversation between two prison staff members” allegedly discussing her murder.
According to the support group, Ponomarenko heard the prison employees say that she wouldn’t be killed at the pretrial detention center, but that she would be killed by other inmates at Prison No.6 in Shipunovo. The journalist “does not rule out the possibility that such statements could have been made intentionally — with the expectation that she would report them to the authorities, which would serve as grounds for a new criminal case … for giving knowingly false testimony,” the group said.
Ponomarenko has “no suicidal thoughts or intentions” and is afraid that “if any unlawful actions are taken against her, they could be portrayed as a suicide,” her support group said.
In late 2024, CPJ emailed the press service of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office for comment but did not receive any replies. In October 2025, CPJ emailed the prosecutor’s office in Altai Krai for comment on the new charges against Ponomarenko but did not receive a reply. In June 2026, CPJ emailed the prosecutor’s office in Altai Krai for comment but did not receive a reply.