Photo: Alexandra Astakhova / Mediazona
A Moscow court has sentenced a local man to eight years in prison for spreading “false information” about the Russian military and jeopardising state security, independent media outlet Mediazona reported on Tuesday.
Solim Kamina, 36, was detained in October 2024 and accused of posting “false information” about a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the Ukrainian city of Uman that killed 23 civilians in April 2023 on popular Russian social media platform VK.
Investigators also viewed Kamina’s post, in which he provided contact details for Russian soldiers wishing to surrender to Ukraine, as a “threat to state security”.
In his closing statement to the court published by Mediazona, Kamina said that his mental health had deteriorated over the past three or four years as he struggled to “accept reality”, which prompted him to act in a fit of emotion.
“Please don’t punish me too severely,” Kamina asked the judge. “I don’t think my imprisonment would serve any purpose. It will completely destroy what little I cherish in myself — the bright and kind side of my personality, my soul. Please don’t kill me,” Kamina said.
Born in Moscow to a Russian mother and a Togolese father, Kamina had been part of a children’s dance collective since the age of eight, having performed with many Russian pop stars, human rights group OVD-Info reported. Before his arrest, he worked as a sales consultant at a Moscow cosmetics store.
According to OVD-Info, Kamina had suffered angioedema, or sudden swelling, while at the Butyrka pretrial detention centre in Moscow where he was sent shortly after his arrest. Kamina is currently being held at Moscow’s notorious Matrosskaya Tishina prison.
Following the sentencing, Kamina’s lawyer Natalia Tikhonova said that the court had handed down “a monstrous term for a non-violent crime”, according to Novaya Gazeta.
