By Andrew Osborn
MOSCOW, June 24 (Reuters) - The deputy leader of Russia's Yabloko party, which opposes the war in Ukraine, was convicted on Wednesday of spreading lies about the Russian army and jailed for seven years, in a verdict he said showed public dissent had become illegal.
Maxim Kruglov, 39, a former lawmaker in Moscow's city legislature, was arrested in October and charged over two posts he made on the Telegram social media network in 2022, the year Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.
The Kremlin says strict censorship laws are needed to keep Russia united during what it calls an existential confrontation with the West.
'A BAN ON DISSENT'
Kruglov pleaded not guilty and told the court — just over two months before a parliamentary election his party hopes to contest — that the case showed the authorities would not tolerate anyone who disagreed with them.
"In essence, this is a ban on dissent," he said.
Wearing a black T-shirt with closely cropped hair, Kruglov rejected prosecutors' claim that his posts were motivated by political hatred, saying his career had been devoted to improving life in Russia.
"It turns out that political disagreement is tantamount to hatred," he told the court.
Russia is due to hold elections for the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, in September, with the war in its fifth year and Ukrainian drone attacks increasingly disrupting life inside Russia.
Yabloko, once a leading liberal force in the post-Soviet period, now holds only a handful of seats in regional parliaments and none in the national parliament. In Russia's tightly-controlled political system, it is unlikely to win national seats this year, but its participation gives it a platform for anti-war views the authorities have sought to curb.
One of the posts cited in the case referred to U.N. data on deaths in the conflict, and another to events in Bucha, near Kyiv, in March 2022. Ukraine and its allies say Russian forces killed civilians there, while Moscow says the incident was staged.
Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov condemned the verdict as unjust.
"If people think that such sentences are acceptable, that such sentences are normal, then they might as well not bother voting or support parties other than Yabloko," he told reporters outside the court.
"Right now, there is a choice: to vote for Yabloko and say ‘no’ to what is happening today, or to vote for any other party and say ‘carry on’."
A survey this month by state pollster Vtsiom put support for parties outside parliament, including Yabloko, at 6.3%, with more than two-thirds backing pro-Kremlin parties such as the ruling United Russia party.
Kruglov said he remained opposed to the war and believed that Russia would one day be a peaceful country.
"A country that its neighbours respect, rather than fear. A country where it is possible to disagree," he said.
(Reporting by Reuters. Writing by Andrew Osborn. Editing by Mark Potter)
