(HONG KONG) — China critic and media mogul Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences, a penalty his son Sebastien called “heartbreaking.”

Lai was found guilty on charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign forces. He had pleaded not guilty.

It is the harshest sentence delivered to anyone under the sweeping national security law since Beijing introduced it as part of crackdowns in 2020. Lai’s family has been worried their 78-year-old dad would die in prison, and given his age and this 20-year-penalty, there is now a real chance that will happen.

It was a tense morning at the court in Hong Kong. Where there would once be huge lively crowds gathering in support of Hong Kong’s democracy figures, the mood was subdued and yet at the same time on edge. There was a heavy police presence outside the court, where officers were tightly controlling the media and the supporters who were queueing up outside of the court.

Lai’s wife, Teresa, walked out of the court holding back tears behind her large black glasses after seeing her husband in the dock, expressionless as he received his sentence.

Jimmy Lai is a U.K. citizen, and his son Sebastien said he is hoping, now that the case has worked its way through the Hong Kong judicial system, that China may release his father as a way to appease the U.K. and the U.S., especially ahead of President Donald Trump’s scheduled visit to China in April.

“Even though it was expected, it’s still quite a hard reality to have to deal with,” Sebastien Lai said. “There’s no upside in what China is doing to dad and there are very real consequences if he dies in there. That April visit is key.”

“I’m sure many Americans would want to have done what my father did in standing for freedom and defending his people. And for that heroism he is being tortured and sentenced to life in prison,” he added.

When ABC News interviewed Lai at his home while he was on bail in September 2020, Lai explained why he was willing to risk it all. He said he escaped from China at the age of 12 with just a dollar, “This place gave me everything. My reward is to pay back. It’s my redemption.”

U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Hong Kong should free Lai “on humanitarian grounds” and the UK government has also pledged to “rapidly engage further” with Beijing. Trump said back in December that he asked President Xi Jinping to consider Lai’s release, and the U.S. ambassador to China David Perdue has said Lai’s case is part of “ongoing discussions” with the Chinese side.

The sentence has been widely condemned by human rights groups, with Human Rights Watch calling the length of the sentence “effectively a death sentence.”

Amnesty International said it was “another grim milestone in Hong Kong’s transformation from a city governed by the rule of law to one ruled by fear.”

Meanwhile, Beijing and Hong Kong officials welcomed the penalty, with Hong Kong’s leader John Lee saying Lai deserved the 20-year prison sentence for his “evil deeds.”

China’s foreign ministry on Monday called the punishment “legitimate and reasonable.”

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(LONDON) — At least three people in Ukraine were killed in Russian overnight drone and missile strikes, the Interior Ministry in Kyiv reported on Monday, as Moscow continued its nightly long-range bombardment campaign.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 149 drones and 11 ballistic missiles into the country from Sunday evening into Monday morning, of which 116 drones and an undetermined number of missiles were shot down or suppressed. The air force said that the impacts of 23 drones and some missiles were recorded across 15 locations.

A woman and a 10-year-old boy were killed when a Russian drone hit the town of Bogodukhiv, around 35 miles northwest of the city of Kharkiv, the Interior Ministry said in a post to Telegram. Three other people were injured, it added.

Another person was killed by a Russian drone attack on the southern Black Sea port city of Odesa, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES) said in a Telegram post. Two other people were injured, the SES said.

Elsewhere, the Interior Ministry said that nine people were injured by a Russian strike on a residential area in Shakhtarsk, in the central Dnipropetrovsk region.

The latest round of strikes came soon after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy again called for more Western aid to replenish and expand the country’s air defense network, which is called into service every night by long-range Russian attacks. 

On Sunday, several Russian ballistic missiles struck Kyiv, Zelenskyy said. “Each of our partners must recognize their strength, their ability to support Ukraine and protect lives,” the Ukrainian president said in posts to social media. 

“Missiles for air defense are needed every single day. Protection against Russian ballistic attacks is needed every single day,” Zelenskyy added. “No country in the world should be left alone and without assistance under such strikes and in such a war.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down at least 71 Ukrainian drones overnight into Monday morning.

Flight operations at two airports — one in Russia’s southern city of Volgograd and the other in the western city of Kaluga — were temporarily paused, Russia’s federal air transport agency said.

Zelenskyy on Sunday defended Ukraine’s attacks deep inside Russia. Kyiv has said in recent months that its drone and missile strikes are focused on the Russian energy sector, which Zelenskyy described as “a legitimate target.”

“We do not have to choose whether we strike a military target or energy,” Zelenskyy said while addressing students at the National Aviation University in Kyiv. “He sells this energy. He sells oil. So is it energy, or is it a military target? Honestly, it’s the same thing. He sells oil, takes the money, invests it in weapons. And with those weapons, he kills Ukrainians.”

Zelenskyy said that left Ukraine with two options: “We either build weapons and strike their weapons. Or we strike the source where their money is generated and multiplied. And that source is their energy sector. That is what is happening. All of this is a legitimate target for us.”

Both sides have continued long-range strikes despite recent U.S.-led peace efforts. Last week saw American, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators meet for a second round of trilateral talks in the United Arab Emirates, with all three participants describing the meetings as productive.

But the talks did not appear to achieve a breakthrough on several contentious points. Among the most difficult are the fate of Ukraine’s partially-occupied eastern Donbas region, the nature of post-war Western security guarantees for Ukraine and control of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the south of the country.

On Friday, Zelenskyy told journalists that the U.S. proposed hosting the next round of trilateral talks, “likely in Miami, in a week.” Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian side “confirmed our participation.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, said in an interview with the TV BRICS outlet that Moscow sees no “bright future” in its future economic relations with the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump, presidential peace envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev — who is also the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund — have all suggested that a peace deal in Ukraine could facilitate a lucrative new era for American-Russian economic cooperation.

But Lavrov alleged that the U.S. had “declared their goal of economic dominance,” according to quotes published by the state-run Tass news agency.

Lavrov also explicitly criticized Trump’s administration for failing to roll back the punitive sanctions imposed on Moscow as a response to its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an operation that followed eight years of aggression beginning with Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014.

Trump has threatened more sanctions and tariffs on Russia if Moscow fails to make a deal with Ukraine to end its war, which this month will turn four years old.

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