On Friday, Kremlin critic Alexei Gorinov, already serving a seven-year prison term for criticizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was convicted again and handed a three-year prison sentence. The 63-year-old former Moscow municipal council member faced a three-day trial that highlighted Russia's crackdown on dissent.
Gorinov's latest conviction in the Vladimir region court brings his total prison time to five years in a maximum-security facility. His lawyer confirmed that this new sentence extends his time behind bars by a year compared to his initial conviction.
In July 2022, Gorinov was first sentenced to seven years for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian army during a council meeting. His remarks expressing doubt about a children's art competition and mentioning casualties in Ukraine led to his imprisonment under a law prohibiting deviations from the official narrative on the war.
Despite denying accusations of justifying terrorism, Gorinov faced a second case for discussing Ukraine's Azov battalion and the 2022 Crimean bridge explosion, deemed terrorist acts by Moscow. During his trial, Gorinov reiterated his stance for peace, displaying a hand-drawn peace symbol and a placard urging to 'Stop killing. Let’s stop the war.'
In his closing statement, Gorinov expressed remorse for not preventing the war and called for shared responsibility among war supporters and peace advocates. He extended a plea for forgiveness to Ukrainians and fellow citizens affected by the conflict.
Since the start of the war in February 2022, over 1,100 individuals have faced criminal charges for their anti-war activism, with nearly 350 currently imprisoned or confined to medical facilities, as reported by rights group OVD-Info.
