Following the downing of the Ukrainian flight by the Revolutionary Guard near the city of Tehran in January 2020, Ashna warned Iranian journalists abroad to refrain from “participating in a psychological war involving the Ukrainian flight and do not cooperate with anti-Iranians.”

"What they thought was news was a lie," Ashna wrote on his Twitter account after the Revolutionary Guard acknowledged that they had shot down the plane. “What they thought was a lie was news. We were deceived. Away with secrecy.”

He wrote in another tweet: "This crowd is strange! For them, the effort to tell the truth to the people is betrayal and acknowledging an undeniable organizational error is courage. They loudly demand the apology and resignation of those who were not at fault and did not know about the incident, and make heroes of those who made mistakes and hid it."

He was accused of publishing lies because of his tweets and was tried in the presence of a jury by the Branch 9 of Tehran Criminal Court in December 2020.

After the first court hearing, Ashna released a video describing the Revolutionary Guard  firing on the Ukrainian flight.

In addition to issues related to the Ukrainian flight, Ashna wrote about the death of Judge Mansouri in Romania in June 2020: "It seems that the Tabari case has non-economic dimensions as well. Without active networks in all three branches and possibly other institutions, it seems unlikely to have a corruption case, in which one of the accused dies in Romania. I hope the case is not closed. Please be careful with the depilatory compounds," he said, referring to a substance previously used to commit suicide in prison.

Ashna wrote on his Twitter account on August 1, 2021: "I am on my way to attend the second public session of the trial in the Political Crime Court for the two tweets related to the Ukrainian flight and Tabari. The verdict of the trial court was overturned in the Supreme Court and referred back to the lower courts."

On August 3, 2021, Ahmad Momenirad, the then spokesman of the Press and Political Crimes Jury of the Islamic Republic, spoke with ISNA news agency regarding the investigation into the case of Ashna: "Hesamoddin Ashna was charged with publishing lies to disturb public opinion. The two complaints in this case had previously been heard in Branch 9 of the Tehran Provincial Criminal Court, and after the defendant objected, the Supreme Court returned it to Branch 6, another lower court."

Based on the verdict issued by the jury about the charges and the complaints, the defendant was found guilty by a majority vote and also by a majority vote, the defendant was entitled to a sentence reduction. Momenirad did not provide further details on the sentence.