Russia Sentences Dozhd Journalist to 10 Years in Absentia Over Post Saying ‘20% of Georgia Is Occupied by Russia’

2026-03-24 - 14:03

Moscow’s Tagansky District Court has sentenced Valeria Kichigina, a journalist at the independent Russian-language TV channel Dozhd, to ten years in prison in absentia, over her social media post on the August 2008 war, in which she wrote that “20% of Georgia is occupied by Russia.” According to the channel, Kichigina was convicted under Russia’s 2022 law criminalizing the spread of “fake news” about the military, in what it says is the first known application of the law to content unrelated to the war in Ukraine. Kichigina was banned from posting materials online for five years. Kichigina was charged over two social media posts in January: the 2023 Instagram story about the 2008 war and a repost of reporting on killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. The journalist says she is being persecuted due to her professional work and her coverage of the “Baymak case,” prosecutions linked to the mass protests in Russia’s Bashkortostan region in early 2024, widely seen as among the largest in recent years. Also Read: 16/12/2025 – Russia Renews Call for ‘Normalization’ with Georgia, Praises Tbilisi’s ‘Pragmatism’ 07/03/2022 – TV Dozhd Journalist Allegedly Denied Georgia Entry