INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A Russian prosecutor on Monday requested a nine-year prison sentence for Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin for denouncing Vladimir Putin's
military intervention in Ukraine.According to the prosecution, Yashin, a 39-year-old former Moscow city deputy, was guilty of claiming that
the occupying Russian military had been responsible for the massacre of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha in a discussion about the
current Russian government during a YouTube stream in April.Yashin is being tried under new laws that came into force after February, when
fighting intensified in Ukraine, to penalize what the authorities deem to be damaging or false information about the Russian
Since then he has regularly condemned the Kremlin's offensive on his YouTube channel, which has 1.3 million subscribers.The former Moscow
city councilor is an ally of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and was close to Boris Nemtsov, an opposition politician assassinated
near the Kremlin in 2015.In a court hearing last month, Yashin flashed a peace sign and said he loved Russia and that he was prepared to
"pay with my freedom" to remain in the country.Prosecutors in November argued that Yashin had "inflicted considerable damage to Russia" and
"increased political tensions" when Russian troops were fighting in Ukraine."This is pure political performance, it has nothing to do with
States S.R." while listening to the prosecutor's speech.AFP contributed reporting
