Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
[ColonelCassad] 1. The State Duma adopted amendments to toughen the punishment for high treason. Now, on the fact of treason, you can get a life sentence as the maximum term. The question of the death penalty remained up in
the air as usual in the context of the debate about the appropriateness of extending the moratorium on the death penalty.
2. Of course, Kara-Murza was lucky, a little short of the amendments and received only 25 years. Under the new amendments, he could also receive a life sentence, given the facts of treason. However, I am sure that soon we will see the application of this amendment against other defendants.
3. These are obviously far from the only amendments that should be expected in the legislation for various anti-state crimes related to complicity with countries hostile to Russia. The time of mercy, if it comes, will come only after the war. Now is not the time for tenderness. Which, however, does not save the authorities from the ongoing accusations of rotten liberalism. But if you look at the processes of the last two years, they began to become much less liberal - the war changes society and the state in one way or another, despite the huge inertia of the previous decades of marching to the West and fighting the accursed past.