MOSCOW: Russian military courts sentenced more than 1,000 people on terrorist charges last year, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, referring to a massive wave of prosecutions during the Ukraine offensive.
Russia’s secretive military courts prosecute captured Ukrainian soldiers, Russians accused of working with Kyiv or sabotaging Moscow’s army, domestic opponents of the Kremlin, and alleged radicals and terrorist groups.
“Military courts have a key role in deciding on criminal cases with a terrorist direction,” Putin said in a speech to Russia’s top judges.
“Last year, around 950 such cases were looked at, 1,075 people were sentenced.”
Russia regularly sentences people over opposition to the Ukraine offensive, while convicting captured Ukrainian soldiers on treason and terrorist charges.
The Geneva Conventions prohibit the prosecution of prisoners of war (POW) for taking part in armed hostilities.
Moscow has also intensified its targeting of alleged jihadist cells since the March 2024 massacre at a Moscow concert hall that killed 145 people — an attack claimed by the Islamic State.
The crackdown at home is of a scale not seen since the Soviet era.
The OVD-Info rights group says 1,184 people have been prosecuted in Russia for their opposition to the Ukraine conflict — including 258 for justifying “terrorism” and 58 for “acts of terrorism.”
The Memorial rights group says Russia has 868 political prisoners, though its co-founder Oleg Orlov told AFP last year there were “a lot more” that campaigners did not know about.
Jailed for “discrediting” Russia’s armed forces, he was then released in a prisoner exchange with the United States.
Putin on Thursday praised Russia’s judges for their “dedication” in overseeing the ballooning case load.
He said Russia had created 100 courts and appointed 570 judges in occupied parts of eastern Ukraine, where Moscow has jailed an unknown number of Ukrainians for opposing Moscow’s military offensive.
“They are completely integrated in the united Russian judicial system,” Russia’s Supreme Court chief Irina Podnosova told Putin.
She said military courts had seen a steep rise in overall cases during the Ukraine campaign.
“In 2024, they looked at 18,000 criminal (cases), 13,000 administrative (cases) and 9,000 civilian (cases),” she added.
Little is known of the fate of Ukrainians sentenced by Russian-installed courts in the four Ukrainian regions Russia annexed in 2022 — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia.
Russian courts are known for their low acquittal rates.
Putin hails Russia’s huge number of ‘terror’ convictions
https://arab.news/yqsbt
Putin hails Russia’s huge number of ‘terror’ convictions
- “Military courts have a key role in deciding on criminal cases with a terrorist direction,” Putin said in a speech to Russia’s top judges.
- “Last year, around 950 such cases were looked at, 1,075 people were sentenced“
Belarus frees protest leader Kolesnikova, Nobel winner Bialiatski
- The charismatic Kolesnikova was the star of the 2020 movement that presented the most serious challenge to Lukashenko in his 30-year rule
- Bialiatski — a 63-year-old veteran rights defender and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner — is considered by Lukashenko to be a personal enemy
VILNIUS: Belarusian street protest leader Maria Kolesnikova and Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski walked free on Saturday with 121 other political prisoners released in an unprecedented US-brokered deal.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has locked up thousands of his opponents, critics and protesters since the 2020 election, which rights groups said was rigged and which triggered weeks of protests that almost toppled him.
The charismatic Kolesnikova was the star of the 2020 movement that presented the most serious challenge to Lukashenko in his 30-year rule.
She famously ripped up her passport as the KGB tried to deport her from the country.
Bialiatski — a 63-year-old veteran rights defender and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner — is considered by Lukashenko to be a personal enemy. He has documented rights abuses in the country, a close ally of Moscow, for decades.
Bialiatski stressed he would carry on fighting for civil rights and freedom for political prisoners after his surprise release, which he called a “huge emotional shock.”
“Our fight continues, and the Nobel Prize was, I think, a certain acknowledgement of our activity, our aspirations that have not yet come to fruition,” he told media in an interview from Vilnius.
“Therefore the fight continues,” he added.
He was awarded the prize in 2022 while already in jail.
After being taken out of prison, he said he was put on a bus and blindfolded until they reached the border with Lithuania.
His wife, Natalia Pinchuk, told AFP that her first words to him on his release were: “I love you.”
- ‘All be free’ -
Most of those freed, including Kolesnikova, were unexpectedly taken to Ukraine, surprising their allies who had been waiting for all of them in Lithuania.
She called for all political prisoners to be released.
“I’m thinking of those who are not yet free, and I’m very much looking forward to the moment when we can all embrace, when we can all see one another, and when we will all be free,” she said in a video interview with a Ukrainian government agency.
Hailing Bialiatski’s release, the Nobel Committee told AFP there were still more than 1,200 political prisoners inside the country.
“Their continued detention starkly illustrates the ongoing, systemic repression in the country,” said chairman Jorgen Watne Frydnes.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said their release should “strengthen our resolve... to keep fighting for all remaining prisoners behind bars in Belarus because they had the courage to speak truth to power.”
Jailed opponents of Lukashenko are often held incommunicado in a prison system notorious for its secrecy and harsh treatment.
There had been fears for the health of both Bialiatski and Kolesnikova while they were behind bars, though in interviews Saturday they both said they felt okay.
The deal was brokered by the United States, which has pushed for prisoners to be freed and offered some sanctions relief in return.
- Potash relief -
An envoy of US President Donald Trump, John Coale, was in Minsk this week for talks with Lukashenko.
He told reporters from state media that Washington would remove sanctions on the country’s potash industry, without providing specific details.
A US official separately told AFP that one American citizen was among the 123 released.
Minsk also freed Viktor Babariko, an ex-banker who tried to run against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election but was jailed instead.
Kolesnikova was part of a trio of women, including Svetlana Tikhanovskaya who stood against Lukashenko and now leads the opposition in exile, who headed the 2020 street protests.
She was serving an 11-year sentence in a prison colony.
In 2020, security services had put a sack over her head and drove her to the Ukrainian border. But she ripped up her passport, foiling the deportation plan, and was placed under arrest.
Former prisoners from the Gomel prison where she was held have told AFP she was barred from talking to other political prisoners and regularly thrown into harsh punishment cells.
An image of Kolesnikova making a heart shape with her hands became a symbol of anti-Lukashenko protests.
Bialiatski founded Viasna in the 1990s, two years after Lukashenko became president.
