Kremlin critic defiant after losing jail term appeal

Russian opposition activist Ilya Yashin predicted he would one day help build a "new and free Russia" after losing his appeal against an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence on a charge of spreading false information about the army.

Yashin, a longtime ally of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was convicted in December for statements that he made on his YouTube channel about war crimes allegedly committed by Russian forces in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

Moscow denies its forces have committed war crimes or attacked civilians in what it calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine, saying such allegations have been fabricated to damage its reputation.

Yashin's appeal was turned down two days after his fellow Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed for 25 years on charges of treason and also, like Yashin, "spreading false information". Kara-Murza had made speeches in the United States and Europe accusing Russia of bombing civilians in Ukraine.

Moscow introduced sweeping censorship laws shortly after sending its armed forces into Ukraine in February last year, which have since been used to silence dissenting voices.

Discrediting the army is punishable by up to five years in prison, while "deliberately spreading false information" about it, for which Yashin was convicted, carries a maximum 15 years.

Yashin on Wednesday said he had told the truth in his video and that his conscience was clear.

He asked for the Defence Ministry's main spokesman - whose words he was accused of contradicting - to be summoned to the court, something the judge swiftly rejected, along with Yashin's overall appeal, according to a Reuters reporter at the court.