Moscow City Court on November 2 rejected an appeal by Buddhist Ilya Vasilyev, head of the Moscow Zen Center, and upheld a second, six-year prison sentence in a case over alleged false information about the Russian military. SOTAvision journalists monitored the proceedings.
Vasilyev was prosecuted under Article 207.3 of Russia’s Criminal Code over an English-language post from December 2022 about Russian shelling of Kherson. A court sentenced him to eight years in June 2025, but an appeals court overturned that judgment in October 2025 and ordered a retrial, in part because the defense had been denied its chosen representative.
At the end of the retrial in April 2026, Vasilyev was sentenced to six years in a general-regime penal colony. He acknowledged writing the post but did not consider it a crime.
At the November 2 appeal hearing, the prosecutor sought to close the proceedings. Vasilyev and his lawyers objected, but the court heard the appeal without the public, citing the safety of participants.