On Feb. 6, a court in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine sentenced two men to five years in prison for supporting separatism on the social media website VKontakte. The Donetsk regional prosecutor’s office said in a press release that the two men were convicted by a Slovyansk city court under Part 2 of Article 110 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, “Infringement of the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine,” which carries with it a penalty of three to five years in prison.
The men, both residents of Slovyansk, were found guilty of organizing groups that supported separatist activity on VKontakte in February 2014—after the EuroMaidan Revolution that toppled former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych but before Russian-backed separatists began to seize large portions of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, including Slovyansk.
