Russian artist sentenced to 7 years in prison for Ukraine war protest
Nov. 16 (UPI) -- A Russian artist who admitted to passive acts to protest Moscow's war against Ukraine was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday after being found guilty of "knowingly spreading false information about the Russian army."
The court found Aleksandra "Sasha" Skochilenko, 33, guilty of replacing five price tags in a local supermarket with pieces of paper urging shoppers to stop the war and resist propaganda on television in March 2022.
"How fragile must the prosecutor's belief in our state and society be, if he thinks that our statehood and public safety can be brought down by five pieces of paper," Skochilenko said.
Russian authorities have charged Skochilenko and hundreds of Russians for their small acts in opposition to the country's invasion of Ukraine under a new law at the time for supposedly spreading false information about the military.
The new law was adopted by Moscow after President Vladimir Putin ordered the Ukrainian invasion.
The St. Petersburg-based artist has been detained in a Russian prison since April 2022. One of the replacement retail tags that got her in trouble read: "The Russian army bombed an art school in Mariupol. Around 400 people were hiding inside. My great grandfather did not fight in WWII for four years so that Russia could become a fascist state and attack Ukraine."
Her lawyer Yana Nepovinnova said Russian prosecutors struggled to convict her client under the new law, which was the reason the case stretched beyond one year.
"At first, the investigation took a long time," Nepovinnova said. "Prosecutors needed to find some evidence somewhere."
Skochilenko's lawyers had asked for an acquittal, arguing that she risks dying in prison due to a chronic illness.
Last month, a judge sentenced Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who protested the Ukrainian invasion on a live state news broadcast, to eight and a half years in prison in absentia last month while British-Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza received a 25-year sentence in April for publicly criticizing the war.
Ovsyannikova fled Russia with her daughter last year after escaping from house arrest.
