On 14 October 2024, a court in Moscow sentenced Ukrainian journalist Yanina Sokolova to 8 years of prison in absentia. Sokolova was found guilty of “inciting inter-ethnic hatred”.
On 7 August 2023, the Russian Ministry of Interior had placed Sokolova on the Russia’s wanted list. Authorities said that a criminal case had been opened against her, without specifying on what grounds. Russian media reported that Sokolova had earlier been included on the country’s list of “terrorists and extremists”.
According to Sokolova herself, the criminal case against her was opened due to comments she made in a regular Ukrainian TV show in March 2022, following a new missile attack on Ukraine and testimonies of torture of Ukrainian soldiers, which was streamed on Youtube: “There I spoke about the fact that, it seems to me, the more we kill them, absolutely everyone who supports this war and who fights in it, and [those] who did nothing to stop it [..], the sooner our victory will come. […] This is our national idea now. And I’m not ashamed to voice it, because this is the truth,” the journalist said.
In July 2023, Russian authorities also opened a criminal case against another Ukrainian journalist, Yanina Sokolovskaya, who was accused of disseminating what Russia considers to be “fake news” about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.