Moscow doctor accused by patient of criticising war is jailed for five years

Nadezhda Buyanova said she did not discuss the war with the boy or his mother. Photograph: Pavel Bednyakov/AP

A Russian court has sentenced an elderly Moscow paediatrician to five and a half years in prison after the mother of one of her patients publicly denounced her for comments she allegedly made about Russian soldiers in Ukraine during a private consultation.

Nadezhda Buyanova, 68, was accused in January by the ex-wife of a soldier killed in Ukraine of referring to her child’s father as a “legitimate target of Ukraine” and saying Russia was “guilty” in the ongoing war.