‘Entire nation will shudder at list of martyrs’: Russian oppn leader Shlosberg jailed for 11 years for war remarks
Russian opposition leader Lev Shlosberg was sentenced to 11 years and one month in a penal colony on Monday for speaking out against the war in Ukraine. The case comes amid a wider Kremlin crackdown on dissent ahead of next month’s parliamentary election.Shlosberg, 63, deputy chairman of the liberal Yabloko party, was convicted by a court in Pskov of “discrediting” Russia’s armed forces and spreading false information about them. He denied the charges, calling the proceedings a political trial. Yabloko is the only official political party overtly opposing the war.In his closing statement on Friday, Shlosberg called for an immediate ceasefire and criticised the impact 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 published by independent outlet Mediazona.“Today, cemeteries in our country, including military ones, are growing far more rapidly than maternity wards, kindergartens, and schools,” he said, according to a report by Reuters.Shlosberg also said, “A single person is imprisoned, yet fear seeps into the hearts of millions.”The charges stemmed from comments during a video debate in which Shlosberg described the war as a game of “bloody chess” and called for it to end, in a video debate. Prosecutors later added a charge of spreading fake news about the war over a repost on his Telegram channel.He was detained in June last year and has been in pre-trial detention since December 2025. It was his second trial in two years. He has also been designated a “foreign agent” and convicted of violating regulations linked to that designation.Separately, on Monday, Russia’s Supreme Court also rejected Yabloko’s appeal against its exclusion from the September 18-20 parliamentary election.Yabloko is the only registered Russian political party to have opposed the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Its campaign slogans included, “For a ceasefire agreement, diplomacy and peace!” and “For a Russia free from fear and political repression!”Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov said the party would continue its legal challenge. “We achieved the main thing: The whole world knows how many people in Russia want peace, want to live normally and to raise children under a peaceful sky in their country,” he said.On Shlosberg’s sentence, Rybakov said, “our feelings are with Lev and other political prisoners who have fought and are fighting for peace, for people to not die.”Yabloko called the sentence “barbaric” and said Shlosberg would appeal. Meanwhile, Amnesty International also condemned the verdict. Marie Struthers, its Eastern Europe and Central Asia director, called it “blatant reprisals” for exercising freedom of expression.
