Moscow jails Russian-America journalist Alsu Kurmasheva for over six years | Freedom of the Press News

The journalist is accused of not registering as a ‘foreign agent’ and for spreading ‘false information’ about the Russian army.

A Russian court has sentenced Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for the United States-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), to six and a half years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian army.

Natalya Loseva, a spokesperson for the Supreme Court of Tatarstan, told reporters in the southern city of Kazan on Monday that Kurmasheva was sentenced on Friday after two days of court proceedings.

The sentencing was on the same day that a court in Yekaterinburg sentenced another US citizen, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, to 16 years in prison for espionage after a three-day trial behind closed doors.

RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus called Kurmasheva’s trial and conviction “a mockery of justice”, adding that “the only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors”.

“It’s beyond time for this American citizen, our dear colleague, to be reunited with her loving family,” Capus said in a statement.

Kurmasheva, 47, is based in Prague and has been held since October 18 when she was arrested while visiting family in her native Russian region of Tatarstan. She had first been detained briefly earlier last year while trying to leave Russia, and her passports were confiscated.

A court initially found her guilty of failing to declare that she had a US passport, mandatory under Russian law, and fined her. A week later, she was charged with failing to register as a “foreign agent”, to which she pleaded not guilty.

Her husband, Pavel Butorin, who also works for RFE/RL, wrote on X: “My daughters and I know Alsu has done nothing wrong. And the world knows it too. We need her home.”

Butorin has said her arrest was related to a book she had edited titled Saying No to War: 40 Stories of Russians Who Oppose the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

Gershkovich and Kurmasheva are among at least a half-dozen Americans convicted and jailed in Russia during the biggest breakdown of relations between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

RFE/RL, which has broadcast news about Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union since the Cold War, is funded by the US Congress.

Russia has designated it as a “foreign agent” and an “undesirable” organisation, classifications that carry negative Cold War overtones and effectively ban it inside Russia.

Russia has passed strict military censorship laws that outlaw criticism of its military offensive on Ukraine, launched in February 2022. It has escalated a decade-long crackdown on independent journalists and civil society during the offensive.

Hundreds have been prosecuted for spreading “false information” – which the Kremlin defines as anything not approved by the government – or “discrediting” the armed forces.