A Russian military court has found Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon guilty of inciting terrorism and dissemination of false information, sentencing him to 14 years in prison. Gordon was tried in absentia.
The Kiev-born Gordon, 56, was indicted by Russian authorities in May 2022. He was also put on the register of terrorists and extremists, in part because of a YouTube video in which he called for the US to launch a nuclear strike against Russia.
“Based on the totality of crimes, with some sentences running concurrently, Gordon is sentenced to imprisonment for a term of 14 years, with the first three years to be served in prison, and the rest in a general regime colony,” said Judge Roman Kiforenko of the Second Western District Military Court.
Gordon would also be forbidden from administering internet sites for up to three years after his release. The sentence will go into effect “after Gordon’s detention in the Russian Federation or extradition” to Moscow, Kiforenko added.
According to prosecutors, Gordon posted at least three videos in March 2022 in which he “disseminated false information about the actions of Russian military personnel during the special military operation [in Ukraine], and called on US President Joe Biden to launch a nuclear strike against Russia.”
In July that year, Russian prosecutors filed charges against the journalist in absentia, accusing him of public incitement of terrorist activities, incitement of hatred, knowingly disseminating false information about the armed forces, and public calls for a war of aggression.
Gordon is a household name in Ukraine, ranked among the top ten YouTube hosts in an August 2023 poll. In addition to social media channels with millions of followers, he has run a Russian-language newspaper and hosted a TV interview show.
While he is now an outspoken critic of Russia and promoter of the Kiev government, he had been critical of Vladimir Zelensky prior to the conflict. In 2020, he famously interviewed two Russians that Ukraine considers traitors – former Crimean prosecutor Natalia Poklonskaya and Igor ‘Strelkov’ Girkin, leader of the militia that held Slavyansk for months in 2014. He claimed that this had been a “sting operation” on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence, but the SBU denied knowing anything about it.