MOSCOW. June 11 (Interfax) - Moscow's Gagarinsky District Court has sentenced lawyer Ilya Novikov (designated as a foreign agent in Russia) to eight and a half years in a general penitentiary for spreading false information about the actions of the Russian Armed Forces.
"Novikov has been sentenced to eight years and six months in a general penitentiary," the court's press service told Interfax on Tuesday.
The court disbarred Novikov for four years and prohibited him from administering websites for the same period.
Novikov will begin serving his sentence from the moment he is detained in Russia or is extradited to Russia.
The court found him guilty of spreading knowingly false information about the actions of the Russian Armed Forces.
According to the Moscow prosecution service, "Novikov, residing outside of the Russian Federation, gave an interview on a video hosting service with an unlimited audience on April 3, 2022, and, being motivated by political hatred, disseminated knowingly false information about the actions of the Russian Armed Forces in the special military operation."
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said last year that a criminal case had been opened against Novikov on counts of treason.
According to the FSB, Novikov "voluntarily left Russia after the beginning of the special military operation, joined the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces and continues to take part in their activity, namely, he has been trained, taken part in the hostilities, and engaged in propaganda."
Novikov was designated as a foreign agent in November 2022. He was deprived of his status as a lawyer in Russia in 2023.
A warrant for Novikov's arrest has been issued in absentia and he has been placed on the wanted list in Russia.
Novikov is known for a number of high-profile cases in Russia and Ukraine. For instance, he defended Ukrainian citizen Nadezhda Savchenko in the case of the murder of Russian journalists during the hostilities in Donbass and represented former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko in his case in Ukraine.
He has been residing and working in Ukraine in recent years.