Jailed Russian Journalist Ponomarenko Says She Attempted Suicide In Detention Center

Maria Ponomarenko faces up to 10 years in prison for a Telegram post about the Russian air strike on a theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in which hundreds of civilians were killed.

Russian journalist Maria Ponomarenko, who was detained in April on accusations of discrediting the Russian armed forces with "fake" social-media posts about the war in Ukraine, says she attempted suicide by cutting her wrists to protest her pretrial incarceration.

Ponomarenko told the Altai regional court on September 16 that she suffers depression, claustrophobia, and histrionic personality disorder, and therefore needs to be transferred to house arrest to be with her daughters, but the court rejected her appeal and remanded her in custody until at least September 29.

In early September Ponomarenko was placed in a punitive solitary cell for breaking a window that was covered by paper.

"Being placed in a cell with windows covered by paper I consider torture. I do not impose any danger to society. The only person I could inflict damages on because of depression is myself," Ponomarenko said at the hearing, speaking over a video link.

Ponomarenko, who is currently in pretrial detention in the Siberian city of Barnaul, was arrested in St. Petersburg and later transferred to her native city, where she worked for the RusNews website.

She said in July that she was forcibly taken to a psychiatric clinic, where she was ordered to undergo a "psychiatric evaluation" and forcibly injected with unknown substances when she demanded her personal belongings or hygiene items.

The psychiatric evaluation of criminal suspects does not include any injections.

Ponomarenko, who is the mother of two young children, faces up to 10 years in prison for a Telegram post about the Russian air strike on a theater on March 16 in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in which hundreds of civilians were killed.

A Russian law passed in early March criminalizes the dissemination of "fake" reports that purportedly "discredit the armed forces."

With reporting by RusNews and OVD-Info