Russian hairdresser jailed over neighbour claim of spreading fake news | BBC News

A hairdresser from St Petersburg has been given a jail term of five years and two months on a charge of spreading fake news about the Russian army.

Anna Alexandrova denied posting eight anti-war messages on social media, insisting the case was motivated by a squabble over land with a neighbour.

Her neighbour told the BBC that she had complained to prosecutors after Alexandrova had sent her daughter pictures of the war in Ukraine.

Discrediting the armed forces and intentionally spreading fake news about the military became a crime in Russia within weeks of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In a separate case on Tuesday, four journalists were jailed in Moscow for five and a half years after being found guilty of working for an "extremist organisation".

Antonina Favorskaya, Kostantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin and Artyom Kriger had all insisted they were only doing their jobs, but the court found they had produced work used by an anti-corruption group founded by Putin's chief opponent Alexei Navalny.

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Post from BBC News on April 15, 2025

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