A Russian doctor has been sentenced to five years for alleged involvement in the war in Ukraine

Before the verdict, Nadezhda Buyanova was led to court, handcuffed, and locked inside a glass and steel cage.

Through the glass, a 68-year-old pediatrician told me what he thinks about his problem.

“It’s nonsense, it’s nonsense,” said the doctor.

“I can’t memorize what happened to me. Maybe later I will know.”

The pediatrician was reported to the police by the mother of a 7-year-old child who was treating her.

The woman said that the doctor spoke badly about the boy’s father, a Russian soldier, who was killed in the war in Ukraine and that the doctor said that the Russian soldiers were legitimate victims.

Ms. Buyanova denies making such comments and there is no audio or video recording that proves she made them.

But in February, he was arrested and charged with spreading false information about the Russian military. After a short period of house arrest, he was placed in pre-trial detention.

Now Ms. Buyanova was in the port and about to learn about her future.

Before the judge entered, court officials ordered the photographers out of the courtroom. Together with other journalists, we were ushered into the corridor.

A few minutes later, the court door opened.

“Five and a half years!” cried one of Ms. Buyanova’s supporters in the public gallery. “It’s been five and a half years since he was sent to the penal prison!”

“The sentence is incredibly severe,” said the doctor’s lawyer, Oskar Cherdzhiyev.

“We didn’t expect this, even with the things that happened today [in Russia]. Just a few words proved to put a person in prison for such a long time.”

Alina, one of the group of supporters of the doctor in court, said: “For me it was important that Nadezhda saw that many of us came today, so that, if a miracle does not happen – and we all hoped for a miracle – it would be so easy for her.”

“It is very difficult to talk about this. We are all shocked.”

The law against spreading false information about the military is one of the strictest laws adopted by Russia since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, aimed at silencing or punishing criticism of the war.

The arrest of a Moscow pediatrician is the latest sign that, in Russia, war abroad is fueling repression at home.