In Russia, critiquing the Ukraine war could land you in prison
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started last February, Mikhail Lobanov, a local political activist in the Moscow suburb of Ramenki, put a little sign on his balcony that said “No War.”
It sat there for months, apparently unnoticed, until one day police arrived at his door to arrest him.
Mr. Lobanov, in last year’s municipal elections, is not the sort of person who is used to running afoul of Russian laws. But now he finds himself among the nearly 4,000 prosecutions under a pair of new laws that make it punishable to spread any “fake news” about Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, or to make any statement that authorities
