Russian authorities jailed opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, critic of the war in Ukraine

A Russian court ordered preventive detention Friday for opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian military, his lawyer said.

Moscow's Basmanny District Court ordered the 40-year-old Kremlin opponent to remain in pre-trial detention until June 12, lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said on Facebook.

Russian authorities had opened a criminal case against the prominent activist for allegedly spreading “false information” about the country's armed forces, his lawyer said Friday.

Russian media reported that similar charges were being drawn against extroverted tech executive Ilya Krasilshchik, former editor of Russia's leading independent news site, Meduza. The movements against the two Kremlin critics are part of a growing crackdown on people who speak out against Russia's war in Ukraine.

Russia adopted a law criminalizing the spread of false information about its army shortly after its troops entered Ukraine at the end of February. The offence is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Human rights defenders have so far counted 32 cases aimed at critics of the invasion.

Kara-Murza is a journalist and former associate of the late Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and the oligarch turned dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He was hospitalized with symptoms of poisoning twice, in 2015 and 2017.

Attorney Vadim Prokhorov told reporters that the false information case against Kara-Murza cited a March 15 speech to the Arizona House of Representatives as the basis for the latest charges against him.

In March and early April, the activist made a series of public speeches denouncing Russia's actions in Ukraine; in an April 11 interview with US news channel CNN, he described the Kremlin as “a regime of murderers.”

Kara-Murza was arrested hours after the interview and jailed for 15 days for disobeying a police officer. Prokhorov said his client was due to appear in court for an appeal hearing on Friday, but instead he was taken for questioning at the headquarters of the Russian Investigative Committee. Prokhorov said that Kara-Murza maintained her innocence.

Spokesmen for a Moscow court said investigators requested that Kara-Murza be placed in pre-trial detention for an initial period of two months.

Krasilshchik, the technology executive who left Russia in early March, told Meduza that he had learned about the case against him from news reports, which on Friday night remained unconfirmed. Russian media have linked the charges to an Instagram post, which shows what Krasilshchik said was the photo of charred human remains in the Kiev suburb of Bucha.

“You can't recover after seeing the images of Bucha,” said the caption. “You feel that the army of this country of ours is capable of anything... and so is the country. That we are only an order away from mass executions.”

(With information from AP and AFP)

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