Russian Councillor jailed for asking a good question

Moscow councillor Alexei Gorinov, 60, was arrested in April after he was filmed criticising Russia's invasion of Ukraine in a city council meeting and holding up a sign asking "Do we still need this war?"

He has now been given a seven year prison sentence.

Under the latest anti-free speech Russian law, anyone who spreads "fake news" about the military faces up to 15 years in jail. "Fake news" under this Orwellian legislation is Putin-speak for the truth. Russians are banned from using the word war to describe the invasion.


As I wrote on this blog a day or two ago, Russian politicians have been crowing abouit the fall of Boris Johnson and pretending that this had anything to do with them. It didn't.

What the fall of Boris Johnson and the prison sentence for Councillor Gorinov show is that British democracy, however imperfectly, has working mechanisms to hold British leaders to account, while Russia doesn't and Russian democracy for all practical purposes does not exist.

W have just seen it proved yet again that if a British Prime Minister, no matter how powerful everyone thought he was, loses the confidence of the House of Commons he or she can and will be removed.

Russia - and every one of Russia's neighbours - would be a far better place to live if the Russian Duma had and used any equivalent power.

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