Russian Court Sentences Kremlin Critic Lev Shlosberg to 11 Years in Prison Over Ukraine War Opposition

A Russian court on Monday convicted prominent opposition politician Lev Shlosberg for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, sentencing him to 11 years and one month in prison amid a severe crackdown ahead of next month’s parliamentary election.

The verdict against Shlosberg, a senior member of the Yabloko party, marks another step by the Kremlin to stifle dissent since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022. Yabloko stands as the only official political party overtly opposing the conflict. In a separate ruling on Monday, Russia’s Supreme Court upheld its earlier decision to bar Yabloko from the ballot in the Sept. 18-20 parliamentary vote, denying an appeal by the party.

Shlosberg, 63, serves as Yabloko’s deputy chairman and previously served in the regional legislature of Pskov from 2016-21. He stood trial in the city of Pskov, located about 600 kilometers northwest of Moscow, facing charges of “discrediting” and spreading “false information” about the Russian military. The accusations arose from a debate where he called for an end to the war and from posting a British tabloid front page on his Telegram channel featuring an image of a bloodied woman alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by the headline: “Her blood … his hands.” Shlosberg has firmly rejected the charges as unfounded.

This marked the second trial for Shlosberg in the last two years. He has also been designated a “foreign agent,” a label carrying strong negative connotations in Russia that brings increased government scrutiny, and was previously convicted of violating foreign agent regulations. Having been placed in pretrial detention in December 2025, he remains one of several prominent Yabloko members jailed or labeled as foreign agents as pressure from the Kremlin mounts.

Addressing the court in his final statement on Friday, Shlosberg remarked that over the past 30 years, Russia has traversed “a path from hopes for freedom to the almost complete destruction of human and civil rights and freedoms.” Yabloko denounced the sentence as “barbaric,” while Amnesty International and party leadership condemned the ruling as a direct reprisal for exercising freedom of expression.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, the Supreme Court upheld its previous decision to exclude Yabloko from the ballot for the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament. Despite the mounting pressure and legal setbacks, Yabloko representatives vowed to continue their political and legal fight for peace and representation.