A dish in Moscow has sentenced left-wing Russian dissident Sergei Udaltsov to six years in prison. Udaltsov is accused of “justifying terrorism,” local media reported on Thursday. The 48-year-old should therefore serve his sentence in a high-security penal colony.
Udaltsov, who has been in custody since January 2024, wants to appeal the verdict. He has also announced that he will go on hunger strike, the Russian state news agency Interfax reported.
Since the war of aggression began in Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has taken vehement action against opposition figures and restricted freedom of expression. The authorities often accuse people who do not follow the official line of “justifying terrorism.” The exact allegations against Udaltsov are secret, but he had said at an earlier court hearing that he was accused of supporting Marxist activists online. Udaltsov had publicly said he supported the Russian offensive in Ukraine and said he opposed Putin for patriotic reasons.
Udaltsov was one of the opposition figures who took part in mass protests against the re-election of President Vladimir Putin spoke out in 2012. In 2014 he was sentenced to three years in prison for organizing “mass uprisings”. He was released from the prison camp near Tambov in August 2017 been.
