A Russian court Thursday upheld a four-year prison term for a 17-year-old girl who hung posters of pro-Ukraine Russian fighters in her school, Russian independent media reported.
Criticism of the Kremlin's military campaign is banned in Russia and Moscow has led a massive crackdown on dissent while troops fight in Ukraine -- with information in schools particularly tightly controlled.
Eva Bagrova hung posters of far-right Russian rebel commander Denis Kapustin, leading a group of pro-Kyiv Russians banned by Moscow, in her Saint Petersburg school in December 2024. She was 16 at the time.
Bagrova, held under house arrest and pre-trial detention for a year, was sentenced in October for "justifying terrorism" but her case only became public this week.
On Thursday, an appeals court in the Moscow region ruled "to leave the sentence unchanged and to deny the appeal", according to a video from the hearing posted by independent outlets SOTAvision and RusNews.
Bagrova had hung two posters depicting Kapustin and a fellow pro-Kyiv fighter with an inscription that read "Heroes of Russia" on her school's information board.
Kapustin is the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps -- banned by Moscow -- that has carried out cross-border raids into Russia during the almost four-year with Ukraine.
Also known as Denis Nikitin, he is declared a terrorist by Russia and is banned from entering Germany for supporting neo-Nazi ideology.
Schools have been hard-hit by Russia's tight grip on information since launching its military campaign, with Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine glorified throughout the education system.
"The authorities keep a particularly close eye on the education and indoctrination of minors, so they react very hysterically to any signs of disloyalty in education," Dmitry Anisimov, a spokesman for rights monitor OVD-Info, told AFP.
At least nine youths who were under 18 when investigations against them started were jailed in Russia on politically-motivated charges, OVD-Info estimates.
Lawyer Dmitri Arevkin, who initially defended Bagrova and filed her appeal, confirmed the sentence to AFP and said he no longer represents her.
The Ukrainian military intelligence service GUR recently said that it had faked Kapustin's death in order to prevent his killing by Moscow.
