A Russian military court on Friday sentenced previous state tv anchor Farida Kurbangaleeva to eight years in prison in absentia for spreading out false info about the military and validating terrorism, the independent news outlet Mediazona reported.Authorities pushed charges versus Kurbangaleeva following her May 2024 interview with a fighter from the Free Russia Legion, a group of anti-Kremlin Russians defending Ukraine that Moscow has designated a terrorist company.
She was also charged over a series of posts on her anti-war Telegram channel.The Free Russia Legion fighter she interviewed, Alexei Baranovsky, was sentenced to 6 years in jail in absentia, Mediazona reported on Friday.Kurbangaleeva, who now lives in the Czech Republic, was put on Russias wanted list in June 2024.
The Prosecutor Generals Office requested her extradition in February.Kurbangaleeva started her journalism career in 1998 in Kazan.
From 2007 to 2014, she hosted the Vesti news program on the state-run Rossiya-1 channel before resigning following Russias annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine.She later operated at the Prague-based broadcaster Current Time, a joint job of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.She now deals with the exiled news outlet Govorit NeMoskva and runs her own YouTube channel.Kurbangaleeva informed The Moscow Times that she was unsurprised by the court judgment on Friday, stating, What else can you get out of what we call Putins justice?I have no strategies to stop running my YouTube channel.
I took a short break from work, but I mean to return as host in the brand-new season this fall, she included.