Afanasiev Mikhail Vyacheslavovich

Afanasiev Mikhail Vyacheslavovich  was born on July 12, 1976. He lives in Abakan, Khakassia. He has five minor children, four of whom are young. He is the editor-in-chief of the Khakassian publication "Novy Fokus." He is a two-time recipient of the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Journalism as an Act of Conduct and the first foreign recipient of the Swedish Publicists' Club Prize.

He was sentenced to 5.5 years in a penal colony for a crime under paragraph "a" of Part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Russian Armed Forces by a group of persons through abuse of official position," punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment). On December 18, 2023, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Khakassia upheld the sentence. He has been incarcerated since April 13, 2022.