Russian court jails a Kremlin critic for 11 years for opposing the war in Ukraine

A Russian court on Monday convicted a prominent opposition politician for speaking out against the war in Ukraine and sentenced him to 11 years and one month in prison in the latest crackdown leading up to next month's parliamentary election.

The verdict against Lev Shlosberg, a senior member of the Yabloko party, was another step by the Kremlin to stifle dissent since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022. Yabloko is the only official political party overtly opposing the war.

In a separate ruling Monday, Russia’s Supreme Court upheld its earlier decision to bar Yabloko from the ballot in the Sept. 18-20 parliamentary vote, denying an appeal by the party.

The moves against Shlosberg and Yabloko highlight the Kremlin’s intolerance toward any criticism of the war, now in its fifth year.

Shlosberg, 63, is Yabloko's deputy chairman and served in the regional legislature of Pskov from 2016-21. He stood trial in the city of Pskov, some 600 kilometers (370 miles) northwest of Moscow, on charges of "discrediting” and spreading “false information” about the Russian military.

The charges stemmed from a debate in which he called for ending the war and from posting on his Telegram channel a British tabloid front page featuring an image of a bloodied woman next to one of Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the headline: "Her blood ... his hands.” Shlosberg has rejected the charges as unfounded.

It was the second trial for Shlosberg in the last two years. He has also been designated a “foreign agent,” a label that carries strong pejorative connotations in Russia and brings additional government scrutiny. He was convicted of violating the foreign agent regulations.

In December 2025, he was placed in pretrial detention on the new charges and has been behind bars ever since. He is one of several prominent Yabloko members in recent years to be jailed or designated a “foreign agent” as Kremlin pressure on the party has mounted.

In his final statement to the court Friday, Shlosberg said that for 30 years, Russia has traveled “a path from hopes for freedom to the almost complete destruction of human and civil rights and freedoms.”

He said the war in Ukraine has “changed the lives of every Russian citizen without exception,” and predicted that once its true death toll becomes known, “the entire country will shudder.”

Yabloko said Shlosberg received a “barbaric sentence” for “love of the Motherland and calls for a ceasefire.” In a statement on Telegram, the party said Shlosberg will appeal.

Amnesty International denounced the verdict against Shlosberg.

“His arbitrary prosecution and sentencing are blatant reprisals for exercising his right to freedom of expression to call for peace,” said Marie Struthers, the group's Eastern Europe and Central Asia director.

“The Russian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Lev Shlosberg and quash his conviction," her statement added. “They must repeal legislation criminalizing peaceful anti-war expression, end the persecution of Yabloko members and supporters, and respect the rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and political participation for all Russians.”

In Moscow, the Supreme Court upheld its ruling of a week ago to remove Yabloko from the ballot in the election for the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, denying an appeal by the party.

The Central Election Commission in July had allowed Yabloko on the ballot along with 10 other parties. Young social media users and many Russian opposition figures in exile have since come out in support of Yabloko, urging voters to back the party, once a leading liberal voice in parliament that later lost its bloc of seats as the Kremlin tightened its grip on politics.

In recent years, Yabloko was the only registered opposition party that opposed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Its campaign slogans for this year’s election included, “For a ceasefire agreement, diplomacy and peace!” “Our goal is to prevent nuclear war!” and “For a Russia free from fear and political repression!”

Several Kremlin parties publicly assailed Yabloko for its anti-war stance after it got a slot on the ballot. The Motherland Party filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court, demanding its removal from the ballot, accusing Yabloko of copyright infringement and exceeding campaign spending limits. The party also viewed Yabloko’s stance on Ukraine as unlawful and tantamount to calling for the violation of Russia’s territorial integrity.

Yabloko rejected these accusations, but the Supreme Court sided with the Motherland Party.

As the court met Monday on Yabloko's appeal, the party's supporters gathered outside the courthouse and Russian media reported that several dozen people were detained.

Liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky, who co-founded Yabloko in the 1990s and chairs its political committee, deplored the court's ruling in an online statement. It marked “a serious, deepening crisis in the Russian political system and a lack of understanding of a desired future,” he said.

“People begin to feel this more acutely, regardless of their political views and positions," he said, adding that Yabloko's campaign “for peace and freedom” hit this particular “sore point.”

Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov told reporters after the ruling that the party will continue its fight by lodging a complaint to the Presidium of the Supreme Court and possibly going to the Constitutional Court.

“We achieved the main thing: The whole world knows how many people in Russia want peace, want to live normally and to raise children under a peaceful sky in their country,” Rybakov said.

Regarding the prison term handed to Shlosberg, Rybakov said that “our feelings are with Lev and other political prisoners who have fought and are fighting for peace, for people to not die.”

Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov speaks to his supporters and journalists after hearing an appeal on a lawsuit to bar the party from the upcoming parliamentary elections, at the Russia's Supreme Court, in Moscow, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov carries a box with documents leaving the Russia's Supreme Court after hearing an appeal on a lawsuit to bar the party from the upcoming parliamentary elections, in Moscow, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

Chairman of the Appellate Board of the Supreme Court judge Vladimir Zaitsev, background center, his deputy Igor Zinchenko, and Judge Denis Tyutin, attend a reading of the court decision on an appeal against its ruling to bar the Yabloko party from the upcoming parliamentary elections, at the Russia's Supreme Court, in Moscow, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

Lev Shlosberg, left, senior member of the Yabloko party, waves standing in the defendant's box after a verdict in the case against him is delivered, in a court in Pskov, Russia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, with his wife Zhanna Shlosberg on the right. (AP Photo)

Lev Shlosberg senior member of the Yabloko party, stands in the defendant's box prior to a verdict in the case against him is delivered, in a court in Pskov, Russia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo)

Lev Shlosberg, second right, senior member of the Yabloko party, stands in the defendant's box as the judge delivers a verdict in the case against him in a court in Pskov, Russia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo)

Lev Shlosberg, second right, senior member of the Yabloko party, stands in the defendant's box as the judge delivers a verdict in the case against him in a court in Pskov, Russia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo)

Lev Shlosberg, center, senior member of the Yabloko party, is being led out of the court room after a judge convicted him and sentenced him to more than 11 years in prison, in a court in Pskov, Russia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo)

SOURBRODT, Belgium (AP) — One of Belgium's biggest ever wildfires blazed out of control Monday even as cooler weather and rain in the morning eased conditions for hundreds of firefighters in remote and hilly countryside. In Greece, a fire briefly flared up near the main airport on the outskirts of Athens.

A forest ranger said the fire in Belgium could continue for months underground in peaty soil and sporadically flare up.

Europe is sweltering through one of its hottest and driest summers on record, which a recent study said was fueled by climate change.

Belgium’s King Philippe interrupted his summer vacation to visit emergency services fighting the wildfire in the eastern High Fens, about eight kilometers (five miles) from the German border, as it spread east after moving into a pine forest on Sunday.

The fire in Liège province has burned an estimated 30 square kilometers (about 12 square miles), leaving blackened trees and smoldering ground.

While the fire did not significantly grow, due in part to favorable winds, it remained out of control in areas inaccessible to ground crews, the Wallonia region said in an update.

Some 500 firefighters were aided by aircraft sent from Norway, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands and local police with drones after a cold front brought overnight rain. Farmers were helping supply water to firefighting efforts, regional officials said. Helicopters emptied huge sacks of water over the flames as smoke billowed from forests.

“We managed to maintain the fire where the firemen are situated but there’s still a place which is totally inaccessible, where the fire is still going on in the direction of Monschau in Germany,” said Nicolas Yernaux, spokesperson for the Wallonia regional public services.

He said overnight rains helped contain the blaze and dampen the possibility that smoldering fires will flare up again, but he said they did not significantly impact the center of the fire.

A forest ranger from the region told The Associated Press that the blaze could continue for months underground because of the peaty soil.

“What we see here is that the grassland has burned and the fire has gone into the soil to a certain depth, into the peat, and it is still burning," said Yves Pieper. “It can go down very, very low in the peat layer.”

He said the fire can continue smoldering largely unseen underground for weeks or months before flaring up again, noting that new flames had already appeared nearby.

Precautionary evacuation orders remained in effect for hundreds of residents.

Veterinarian Hugues Guyvot, who was involved in animal rescue efforts, said large animals were able to flee but smaller ones like frogs and mice likely burrowed and were baked underground in a landscape of peat bogs.

“Maybe it will take decades to recover from this fire,” he said.

In Greece, fire department investigators examined the area on the island of Salamina where a fast-moving wildfire on Sunday killed two people, injured another nine and destroyed several homes. The island lies just west of the Greek capital.

New wildfires broke out elsewhere Monday. Dozens of firefighters along with two water-dropping planes and two helicopters raced to tackle one in Spata, an area east of Athens that includes the main international airport. The fire department said the blaze was contained within 30 minutes.

Separately, the fire department said an 80-year-old man was arrested in the northern town of Kavala on arson charges for allegedly deliberately setting fire to dried vegetation. It was among 302 fire-related arrests since Jan. 1 in Greece, including 31 for deliberate arson and 271 for negligence that sparked fires, the department said.

In southwestern France, authorities said a fire in the Landes region was under control after four days of battling the flames, allowing about half of the evacuated residents to begin returning home.

More than 600 residents evacuated last week as the fire burned about 17 square kilometers (6.6 square miles) during a prolonged spell of extreme heat. Some respite was on the way Monday as temperatures began to drop.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the state would provide a 12 million-euro ($13.9 million) aid package to Gironde and Landes, the regions hardest hit by the wildfires, to help rebuild homes and support affected businesses, including in Le Porge, where 183 homes were destroyed in a massive blaze last month.

In Croatia, four people are suspected of deliberately starting as many as 10 fires in the region around the coastal town of Zadar, a major tourism hub on the Adriatic coast.

The suspects were questioned by an investigative judge following their arrest on Saturday on a tip from residents.

The four are suspected of starting fires on Aug. 14 and 15 with an aim to “endanger lives and valuable property and inflict damage on a large number of residents in Zadar county,” police said in a statement. There was no word on a possible motive.

Police said they were assessing the extent of the damage caused.

Corbet reported from Paris. Elena Becatoros in Argostoli, Greece, and Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed.

A police helicopter carries a Bambi Bucket as it prepares to drop water onto a wildfire buring in Waimes, Belgium, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (Photo AP/Marius Burgelman)

Belgium's King Philippe, second right, and Governor of Liege Province Herve Jamar, center, meet with emergency teams and volunteers involved in fighting a wildfire in Vottem, Belgium, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (Photo AP/Marius Burgelman)

Belgium's King Philippe, center, shakes hands with Belgium's Deputy Prime Minister Jan Jambon, third left, as he visits with emergency teams and volunteers involved in fighting a wildfire in Vottem, Belgium, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (Photo AP/Marius Burgelman)

Smoke rises from a burned-out area of the Hautes Fagnes near Waimes, Belgium, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (Photo AP/Valentin Bianchi)

A view of a burned area a day after a wildfire in Peristeria village on the island of Salamina, west of Athens, Greece, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

A firefighter walks through a burned area as flames engulf a house during a wildfire on the island of Salamina, west of Athens, Greece, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)