A court in the Russian city of St. Petersburg sentenced anti-war activist Olga Smirnova to six years in prison on August 30 on a charge of spreading fake news about the armed forces.
one is a whistleblower leaking highly confidential information and the other is a simple person speaking out against their government's actions
This level of detail is not included in the linked article. The article says "she placed materials about Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine on the Internet that contradicted official Defense Ministry statements." From the article, we have no idea what those materials were. Maybe they included classified information, maybe they included actually false information, maybe they included incitements to violence, we don't know.
Radio Free Europe was created and grew in its early years through the efforts of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), an anti-communist CIA front organization that was formed by Allen Dulles in New York City in 1949. RFE/RL received funds covertly from the CIA until 1972. During RFE's earliest years of existence, the CIA and U.S. Department of State issued broad policy directives, and a system evolved where broadcast policy was determined through negotiation between them and RFE staff.
This level of detail is not included in the linked article. The article says "she placed materials about Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine on the Internet that contradicted official Defense Ministry statements." From the article, we have no idea what those materials were. Maybe they included classified information, maybe they included actually false information, maybe they included incitements to violence, we don't know.
Note also that the article is from Radio Free Europe, a U.S. propaganda outlet:
https://vkrizis.ru/obschestvo/olga-smirnova-prigovorena-k-shesti-godam-za-sem-postov/
If you search her name in Cyrillic you can find Russian sources (.ru domains are managed by Russia, no?)