A Moscow court on Monday sentenced in absentia Masha A. Gessen, the Russian-born American journalist, author and New York Times staff member, to eight years in prison over comments they made about atrocities that the Russian military has been accused of committing in Ukraine. Gessen, who lives in the United States and uses the pronoun they, in August over a 2022 interview they gave to Yuri Dud, a popular online Russian journalist. The corpses of at least 400 civilians were found in Bucha after Russian forces retreated from the city. Gessen guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian military, an all-too-common tactic against critics as the Kremlin uses the courts to suppress any information about the war that diverges from the official version. Russia has accused Ukraine and its Western allies of staging the Bucha massacre.

---

Persons: Masha A, Yuri Organizations: New York Times, YouTube, Kremlin Locations: Moscow, Russian, Ukraine, United States, Ukrainian, Bucha, Russia’s Basmanny, Russia