The Russian-installed court of Melitopol (Zaporizhzhia oblast) on sentenced Heorhiy Levchenko, the administrator of the Telegram channel RIA Melitopol who was detained by Russian forces back in 2023, to 16 years in a high security prison on September 2, IMI reports.

The Russian-installed “Zaporizhzhia Region Court” posted a report on the ruling on their website on 2 September, according to Natalia Vyhovska, the Institute of Mass Information representative in Zaporizhzhia oblast.

The Russian court found Heorhiy guilty of high treason and online calls for extremism.

Russia claims that Levchenko is guilty of running a news Telegram channel after February 2022 and “remaining in the city and continuing his work” after part of Zaporizhzhia oblast was occupied. The Russian forces have remarked that that Levchenko “had a negative opinion of the SMO (Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine — Ed.), representatives of the Russian state authorities in the region, and the foreign policy pursued by them,” and “decided to use the Telegram channel for anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian propaganda, as well as to share data on the locations of Russian Armed Forces units in Zaporizhzhia oblast with the Ukrainian special services.”

The court ruling states that Levchenko “ran a network of ‘correspondents’ in 2023 who sent him material containing calls for terrorism and violence against servicemen and representatives of the Russian authorities in Zaporizhzhia oblast, which he then posted on the Telegram channel.”

The occupiers also accused him sharing data on the locations of Russian army units with “Ukrainian special services,” which “were later used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to aim missile and bomb strikes.”

Heorhiy was found guilty under articles that only Russian citizens can be charged with. The court sentenced him to 16 years in prison, with a one-year ban on work related to website administration and a year of restriction of freedom.

Heorhiy Levchenko is on the Institute of Mass Information’s list of 26 civilians working in journalistm who were illegally detained by Russia.