Ukraine sentences general producer of occupiers' Crimean TV channel

The court sentenced Crimean collaborator Oleg Kryuchkov. The producer, who has been working for the occupation administration of the Russian Federation since 2014, was found guilty of war propaganda and collaboration. The court's decision in absentia is based on evidence of Kryuchkov's participation in information support of the temporary occupation of the peninsula and justification of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

This was reported by the Prosecutor's Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

The traitor was sentenced to 12 years in prison with full confiscation of property. The defendant was found guilty of propaganda of war, collaboration and justification of the temporary occupation of the territories of Ukraine with the use of the media.

According to the SBU, Kryuchkov has been systematically building a system of hostile propaganda on the peninsula since 2014, and after the full-scale invasion, he expanded it to the south of Ukraine. The investigation found that he personally supervised the creation of a network of 19 pro-Russian TV studios, radio stations and online resources in the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. These media centers have become the main tool for spreading fakes and justifying Russian war crimes against civilians.

The propagandist is currently under sanctions imposed by Ukraine, the EU, Switzerland and Japan. The verdict will come into force after the 30-day appeal period expires, and the actual sentence will begin from the moment the convict is detained.

Earlier, a Ukrainian court sentenced in absentia one of the other key ideologues of the occupation regime in Crimea. The director of the Institute of Media Communications of the so-called 'Crimean Federal University' and the host of the propaganda TV channel 'Millet' was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Prosecutors proved that since September 2022, the citizen of Ukraine has been actively using the author's program to justify Russia's armed aggression and deny the very existence of Ukrainian statehood.

Катерина Глушко