Russian court jails journalist for six-and-a-half years after secret trial

Russian-American editor Alsu Kurmasheva convicted for spreading false information' about armed forces

A Russian court has sentenced Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, to six-and-a-half years in prison after a rushed, secret trial.

Kurmasheva, a Prague-based editor, was arrested last year during a family visit to the city of Kazan in south-west Russia for failing to register as a foreign agent" and for spreading false information" about the country's armed forces, under crippling censorship laws enacted after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.