Russian politician who favours Ukraine ceasefire is jailed

The deputy leader of Russia's liberal Yabloko party, which opposes the war in Ukraine, was convicted ​of spreading lies about the Russian army on ‌Wednesday and jailed for seven years just over two months before a parliamentary election.

Maxim Kruglov, a former lawmaker in Moscow's city legislature, ​was arrested in October last year and charged over the ​content of two posts he had made on ⁠the Telegram social media network in 2022, the year ​Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.

Kruglov pleaded ​innocent at his trial and said he believed that the war in Ukraine was a tragedy that must stop as soon as ​possible.

One of his two posts had referred to UN ​data about the number of people killed in the conflict and ‌another ⁠to events in Bucha, a town north of Kyiv, in March 2022.

Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russian forces of killing civilians in Bucha; Moscow says the killings ​there were ​staged to ⁠discredit its troops.

Yabloko, one of Russia's main liberal groups in the early post-Soviet years, now ​has only a handful of seats in ​regional ⁠parliaments and no seats in the national parliament.

But the fact that it still contests elections gives it a platform ⁠to ​voice its anti-war views.

Russia holds elections ​for the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, in September.

-Reuters