Moscow (AFP) - A Moscow court on Tuesday sentenced Ilya Yashin to 15 days in prison, one of the last Russian opposition figures still in the country amid a wave of crackdowns since the attack on Ukraine.

Yashin, 38, was sentenced after being convicted of "disobedience to the police," according to the Information Office of the Moscow Courts, a charge he considered fabricated, indicating on Telegram that he was "a critic of President (Vladimir) Putin and an opponent of the war in Ukraine."

Also, he raised the possibility of a long prison sentence.

"My arrest may be a prelude to a future criminal case," he said, recalling that the procedures against him are reminiscent of those taken against his "comrade Vladimir Kara-Murza," one of the few dissidents who remained in the country and was imprisoned in the spring.

Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested in Moscow in April and sentenced to 15 days in prison for "disobeying the police". He was then charged with "dissemination of false information" about the Russian army, a crime punishable by 15 years in prison. He was then placed in pretrial detention.

For her part, his girlfriend, journalist Irina Pabloyan, who was with him via Telegram, said that Ilya Yashin stopped the two during a walk in a park in Moscow. Pabloyan, a witness to the arrest, confirmed, "They say he insulted (the police) and used obscene language during his arrest. This is not true at all."

The dissident wrote on Telegram, "The story contained in the (police) report about insulting two policemen, which claims that I pushed their arm as a joke. I am not crazy to get into a fight with three policemen."

Yashin has been a prominent opposition figure for years, notably during the massive move against the Kremlin in 2011-2012.

He was close to Vladimir Putin's archrival Alexei Navalny, who is now serving a nine-year prison sentence, and Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in 2015.

He is currently an elected opposition member of a Moscow constituency and has on several occasions denounced Russia's military offensive against Ukraine.

The crackdown on all anti-Kremlin movements and independent media in Russia has increased since this attack.

And the Russian authorities surrounded themselves with a legal arsenal that allows the imposition of penalties of up to 15 years in prison against those who denounce the attack on Ukraine.

Before that, figures critical of the Kremlin and independent media were subject to administrative or judicial harassment.