Socialite and food blogger Veronika Belotserkovskaya says she is both amused and shocked to be charged
One of the first three people to face a criminal case under Russia’s “fake news” law has said the charges mean she has been “officially declared a decent person”.
“To find out I was the first one to be charged was both amusing and shocking. I joked that I was officially declared a decent person,” said Veronika Belotserkovskaya, a popular food entrepreneur and blogger with almost 1 million Instagram followers who was one of the three Russians charged under the new law that carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. The moves marked an escalation in the country’s crackdown on anti-war dissent.
