Before sentencing, Nadezhda Buyanova was led, handcuffed, into the courtroom and locked in a glass and metal cage.
Through the glass, the 68-year-old pediatrician told me what she thought about her predicament.
“It’s absurd, it’s absurd,” the doctor said.
“I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. Maybe I can do it later.”
The pediatrician was alerted to police by the mother of a 7-year-old boy she was treating.
The woman claimed that the doctor had made negative comments about the boy’s father, a Russian soldier, who was killed fighting in Ukraine and that the doctor had said that Russian soldiers there were targets. legal spending.
Ms. Buyanova denies making such comments and there are no audio or video recordings to prove that she made them.
But in February, she was arrested and charged with spreading false information about the Russian armed forces. After a short period of house arrest, she was placed in pre-trial detention.
Now Miss Buyanova is at the dock and about to learn her fate.
Before the judge entered, court officials ordered the camera crew out of the courtroom. Along with other journalists, we were led into the hallway.
A few minutes later, the courtroom door opened again.
“Five and a half years!” exclaimed one of Ms. Buyanova’s supporters in the public gallery. “She was sent to a detention center for five and a half years!”
“This sentence is extremely harsh,” the doctor’s lawyer, Oskar Cherdzhiyev, told me.
“We did not expect this, even with what is happening today [in Russia]. Just a few words are enough to put someone in jail for that long.”
Alina, one of the doctor’s supporters in court, said: “For me, it is important that Nadezhda sees that so many of us came today, so that if the miracle does not happen – and all of us I still hope for something.” miracle – that will be a little easier for her.”
“It’s very difficult to talk about this. We were all shocked.”
The law against spreading false information about the military is one of many harsh laws passed in Russia since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, aimed at silencing or punishing criticism of the war.
The jailing of a pediatrician in Moscow is the latest sign that, for Russia, a war abroad is fueling repression at home.
