Six Russian activists were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 12 years in a court in St. Petersburg. They had been detained for two and a half years before the verdict.
The group, called Vesna (Spring), was founded in 2013 and has conducted theatrical political street protests in cities across Russia. In 2022, they protested against the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. A total of 21 people from 13 different Russian regions were charged, but 15 of them managed to flee the country before being arrested.