Maria Kartasheva

She left Russia about three years ago. She learnt about the criminal case from her mother, who lives in Vladivostok, when investigators called her. The case was opened in Moscow, and the woman was put on the wanted list. The details of the case are unknown. The woman assumes that the reason could have been her pickets at the Russian Embassy in Canada, but later it became known that the case was initiated because of a post in a Telegram channel about the events in Bucha. On 24 April 2023, Kartasheva was arrested in absentia. On 24 November 2023, she was sentenced in absentia to eight years. Later, Kartasheva said that the text of the sentence for some unknown reason mentions Maksim Kats, who was previously sentenced to the same term under the same article, and also says that her YouTube channel is watched by many people, although she does not have a YouTube channel. From this she concluded that the court had "simply copied" fragments of the text of the Katz judgement text into her sentence. On 21 March 2024, the appeal court overturned the verdict and sent the case for a new trial. On 1 July 2024, Kartasheva was sentenced in absentia to seven years' imprisonment.