SME —
Olesya Krivtsova is sporting an anti-Putin tattoo one ankle and a bracelet the tracks each step on the opposite.
The 19-year-old from Russia’s Arkhangelsk area should put on the system whereas she is underneath home arrest after she was charged over social media posts that authorities say discredit the Russian military and justify terrorism.
Russian officers have added Krivtsova, together with ISIS and al Qaeda, to their record of terrorists/extremists. She posted an Instagram story in October in regards to the blast on the Crimean Bridge. It additionally criticised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Krivtsova was a scholar of Northern (Arctic) Federal University. This college is situated in Arkhangelsk’s northwestern area.
Currently, Krivtsova is staying underneath home arrest in her mom’s condo in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk area, banned from going surfing and utilizing different types of communication.
“Olesya’s case is not the first, nor is it the last,” Alexei Kichin, Krivtsova’s lawyer, informed SME.
Kichin acknowledged that {the teenager} might face three years imprisonment for discrediting Russia’s military, and 7 years underneath Article of Justification of Terrorism. However, Krivtsova’s authorized protection hopes for a softer punishment similar to a advantageous.
Independent human rights monitor OVD Info mentioned that Russia had obtained at the very least 61 legal circumstances in 2022 for justification of terrorism through the web. There have been 26 convictions to date.
Olesya’s mom, Natalya Krivtsova, says the federal government is attempting to provide a warning to the general public, along with her daughter being in impact “publicly flogged” for not maintaining her views to herself.
“We live in the Arkhangelsk region and this is a vast region but too remote from the center. There are no more protests in Arkhangelsk, so they are trying to strangle everything that is left at its early stage,” Natalya Krivtsova informed SME.
An area head of the Communist Party, Alexander Novikov, publicly mocked {the teenager} on state tv, calling her a idiot who ought to be despatched to the entrance strains in Ukraine’s japanese Donbas area in order that she might “look into the eyes” of the navy combating as a part of the Arkhangelsk battalion.
This isn’t Olesya Krivtsova’s first run-in with the authorities for publicly airing her views. She was accused of discrediting Russian Army by publishing anti-war propaganda.
The state of affairs grew to become much more difficult when Krivtsova was charged with discrediting Russia’s military through social media in October. According to Krivtsova’s lawyer, a repeat offense underneath the identical article turns right into a legal case.
“She has a heightened sense of justice, which makes her life hard. The inability to remain silent is now a major sin in the Russian Federation,” her mom informed SME.
According to Natalya Krivtsova, police burst into an condo on December 26 the place her daughter was dwelling along with her husband Ilya, forcing the younger individuals to lie face down on the bottom and allegedly threatening them with a sledgehammer, which the officers informed her was a “hello” from the Wagner Group, a non-public navy contractor headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
SME reached out to Arkhangelsk’s state police for feedback.
“Olesya was very frightened because she saw the video in which a prisoner was killed with a sledgehammer,” her mom informed SME.
Natalya Krivtsova referred to the well-known video the place mercenaries with the Wagner Group who actively recruit prisoners execute Yevgeny Nazhin, a former prisoner, utilizing a Sledgehammer to smash his escape try. The video description mentioned: “The traitor received the traditional, primordial Wagnerian punishment.”
“The state has some strange policies: prisoners go to war, and children go to prison,” she mentioned.