Moscow councillor who criticised the government was found guilty of the charges

Ilya Yashin, a member of the opposition, was found guilty on Friday by a Russian court of disseminating "false information" on Russia's military intervention in Ukraine. This is the most well-known conviction under the new law that makes criticising the campaign illegal.

The 39-year-old Moscow councillor is merely the most recent in a long line of Kremlin opponents who have been marginalised in recent years, a crackdown that became more severe when the crisis started in February.

An AFP reporter from the court reported that Yashin, who was handcuffed and wearing a white sweatshirt, grinned and waved to his family throughout the hearing.

Yashin had committed a crime, according to judge Oksana Goryunova, by spreading "knowingly false information about Russia's Armed Forces."

He had called the suspected killing of residents in Bucha, a town close to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where victims were discovered after Russian forces withdrew, a "massacre" in April.

He is being tried under new laws intended to punish discrediting or false information about the Russian military that came into effect after February, when fighting in Ukraine erupted.

The member of the Moscow municipal council was close to Boris Nemtsov, an opposition politician killed in 2015 close to the Kremlin, and is a supporter of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Yashin continued to criticise the Kremlin's offensive in Ukraine to his 1.3 million YouTube subscribers even after President Vladimir Putin dispatched soldiers to Ukraine on February 24.

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