Russian court jails anti-war politician for 11 years

A senior member of Russia's opposition Yabloko party has been sentenced to 11 years and one month in a penal colony for condemning the war in Ukraine, which he described at his trial as a catastrophe for Russia.

Lev Shlosberg, the party's deputy chairman, was accused of discrediting Russia's armed forces and spreading false information about them.

In a closing speech to the court in the city of Pskov last Friday, he maintained his innocence, said he was the victim of a political trial and repeated his call for an immediate ceasefire in the four-and-a-half-year war.

The verdict, published by the court, follows an August 10 decision by Russia's Supreme Court to exclude Yabloko from taking part in a parliamentary election next month.

Yabloko said it would now lodge a supervisory appeal with the Presidium of the Supreme Court.

Party leader Nikolai Rybakov had called on the court to reinstate Yabloko's registration for the September 18-20 election.

Yabloko, the only registered political party to call for an end to the war, has come under heavy pressure from the authorities in the run-up to the election, where any sizeable anti-war vote could have embarrassed the Kremlin.

Shlosberg used his closing speech to deliver a searing indictment of the war.

"The lives of countless thousands of people have been cut short during this time. Sooner or later, the precise and complete death toll - with names included - will be made public, and the entire nation will shudder at this list of martyrs," he said, according to a transcript by independent news outlet Mediazona.

"Today, cemeteries in our country, including military ones, are growing far more rapidly than maternity wards, kindergartens and schools," he said.

Mediazona and the BBC Russian service have recorded the names of at least 239,354 Russian military dead, based on publicly available records.

Based on records of the estates of dead people, which they used to calculate excess mortality among Russian men, they estimate the true toll at more than 350,000.

Russia says it is fighting to address security threats from the NATO military alliance and Ukraine, and to defend the rights of Russian-speakers living in Ukraine.

Ukraine and its allies reject these as a false premise for launching the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.