Activist-journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza jailed for 25 years for criticising Putin

A Russian court convicted a top opposition activist of treason on Monday for publicly denouncing Moscow's war in Ukraine and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.

It was the latest move in the Kremlin's relentless crackdown on anyone who dares to criticise the invasion.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr., an activist and journalist who twice survived poisonings he blamed on the Kremlin, has rejected the charges against him as punishment for standing up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and likened the proceedings to the show trials during the rule of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Human rights organisations and Western governments denounced the verdict and demanded his release.

Amnesty International declared the 41-year-old a prisoner of conscience.

The charges against Kara-Murza, who has been behind bars since his arrest a year ago, stem from a March 2022 speech to the Arizona House of Representatives in which he denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine and other speeches abroad.

Days after that invasion, the country adopted a law criminalising spreading “false information” about its military.