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Ahead of the decision, Nadezhda Buyanova was led, handcuffed, into the courtroom and locked inside a glass and steel cage.
Through the glass, the 68-year-old paediatrician instructed me what she considered her predicament.
“It’s absurd, just absurd,” the physician stated.
“I can’t get my head around what’s happening to me. Perhaps later I’ll be able to.”
The paediatrician had been reported to police by the mom of a 7-year-old boy she’d been treating.
The lady had claimed that the physician had made adverse feedback in regards to the boy’s father, a Russian soldier, who had been killed combating in Ukraine and that the physician had stated Russian servicemen there have been legit targets.
Ms Buyanova denies making such feedback and there’s no audio or video recording to show she made them.
But again in February, she was arrested and charged with spreading false details about the Russian armed forces. After a brief spell beneath home arrest, she was positioned in pre-trial detention.
Now Ms Buyanova was within the dock and about to be taught her destiny.
Before the decide entered, court docket officers ordered digicam crews out of the courtroom. Along with different journalists, we had been ushered into the hall.
Minutes later the door to the courtroom opened once more.
“Five-and-a-half years!” cried one in every of Ms Buyanova’s supporters within the public gallery. “She’s been sent to a penal colony for five-and-a-half years!”
“The sentence is monstrously harsh,” the physician’s lawyer, Oskar Cherdzhiyev, instructed me.
“We didn’t expect this, even given what is happening today [in Russia]. Just a few words proved enough to put someone behind bars for such a long time.”
Alina, one of many physician’s group of supporters in court docket, stated: “For me it was important that Nadezhda saw that a lot of us came today, so that, if a miracle didn’t happen – and we were all still hoping for a miracle – it would be just that little bit easier for her.”
“It’s very difficult to speak about this. We’re all in shock.”
The law against spreading false information about the army is one of several harsh pieces of legislation adopted in Russia since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the aim of silencing or punishing criticism of the war.
The imprisonment of a Moscow paediatrician is the most recent signal that, for Russia, a struggle overseas is fuelling repression at dwelling.
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