A well-known Russian chef who has been compared to Nigella Lawson in her country was given a nine-year prison term for opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Veronika “Nika” Belotserkovskaya, 52, was given the punishment as a result of recently passed legislation that harshly penalises any form of official criticism.
In a social media post, Nika had denounced Mad Vlad’s nuclear hyperbole, writing, “Most of all, to be honest, I am frightened of the RED BUTTON.”
Her family’s residences and land in Russia have already been taken by a Moscow court.
Belotserkovskaya, who was born in the Ukrainian city of Odessa, has previously raised $270,000 for the Ukrainian army with British businessman Evgeny Chichvarkin. Any government criticism will be punished.
In a social media post, Nika had denounced Mad Vlad’s nuclear hyperbole, writing, “Most of all, to be honest, I am frightened of the RED BUTTON.”
Other remarks that landed her in hot water included her saying Putin was sending “boys aged 18-to-20 … into the mincemeat of [his] imperial ambitions”.
The war is “an aggressive WAR against a sovereign state,” she also said.
The prosecution claimed that her 1.3 million followers were exposed to “deliberately false information about the commission by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of the murder of children, the bombing of the maternity hospital in Mariupol, and the killing of civilians in Bucha” in her social media posts.
I don’t consider the Ukrainian People my enemy, she wrote in one post that is thought to have particularly angered the Kremlin. They are my brothers and sisters.
“I am absolutely horrified by how many mothers from both sides will not wait for their boys to come home.
“I’m afraid for my children.
“I want them to live in a world without this monstrous hatred, which every day, this unnecessary f***ing war breeds. Which NO ONE wanted!
