A popular food blogger has become one of the first to be charged under Russia’s ‘fake news’ law which threatens up to 15 years in prison for opposing the Kremlin’s stance on its war on Ukraine .
Ukrainian foodie Nika Belotserkovskaya, 51, has confirmed on social media that she has been charged under the draconian new law.
“Am I the first to go?” she asked on the Instagram page that got her into trouble and still has many anti-war posts.
“I have been officially declared a decent person!” she joked to her more than 900,000 followers, insisting she could “handle” the threat.
The Russian Investigative Committee confirmed on Wednesday that Belotserkovskaya had been accused of telling “lies” about the war, along with an unidentified man and woman in the Tomsk region of Siberia.
The blogger was accused of publishing “deliberately false information about the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation to destroy cities and the civilian population of Ukraine, including children”.
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His Instagram page still contains images with the blue and yellow of Ukraine as well as reports reflecting the horrors of war.
Her home was raided and travel restrictions imposed, Agence France-Presse said of the writer who divides her time between Moscow and France, where she has a cooking school in Provence.
Russian authorities have said they believe she and the other two defendants are abroad, saying they plan to seek international warrants for their arrest.
Warmongering Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 4 issued a threat of up to 15 years to people who “knowingly publish false information” about his so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The Kremlin has repeatedly denied attacking civilians despite gruesome and mounting evidence.
Last week, children and pregnant women were among those killed in an airstrike on a maternity ward, and a week later a theater where more than a thousand sought safety – and was clearly marked ‘CHILDREN’ – exploded on Wednesday.
With post wires
