Conviction of Russian Doctor Highlights Growing Repression
A 68-year-old pediatrician from Moscow, Dr. Nadezhda Buyanova, was found guilty on Tuesday and sentenced to five and a half years in prison. The charges stemmed from allegations that she made a disturbing remark during a medical consultation with a young boy, stating that his father, who had been killed while fighting in Ukraine, “deserved to die.”
This case is part of a larger trend of criminal prosecutions targeting ordinary Russians who express dissent regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine. What makes Dr. Buyanova’s situation particularly distressing is that the prosecution’s case relied significantly on the testimony of a 7-year-old boy. Initially, the boy’s mother claimed that her son had not been present during the doctor’s comments. However, she later altered her story and permitted her child to be interviewed for the case a month later.
Dr. Buyanova was charged under a law prohibiting the “dissemination of false information” about Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. In court, she staunchly denied the allegations, asserting that she had not discussed the war with the child at all.
During the trial, the court did not permit the boy to be questioned directly. Instead, prosecutors presented records from a pretrial interview. Dr. Buyanova’s attorney, Leonid Solovyev, raised serious concerns regarding the credibility of the boy’s statements. He noted that the recorded responses seemed too advanced for a child of that age, filled with complex phrases and terminology unlikely to be familiar to a 7-year-old.
- Quotes from the attorney: “Those phrases like ‘legitimate target’ and ‘aggression’ — I very much doubt that a young child can say that, let alone remember and repeat it,” Solovyev remarked in an interview.
The case has elicited widespread condemnation from human rights organizations and healthcare professionals alike. Over a thousand medical workers signed an open letter this year in support of Dr. Buyanova, expressing their outrage at the implications of her conviction. The letter warned that this case sends a chilling message to aspiring medical professionals: “Do not enter the medical field; do not assist those in need — your actions could be misconstrued, and you might find yourself facing imprisonment.”
