A court in St. Petersburg has sentenced a 19-year-old girl to two years and eight months in prison in a penal colony after she was accused of "repeatedly discrediting" the Russian military, including one case where she pasted a quote on a statue of a Ukrainian poet.
Darya Kozyreva was arrested on February 24, 2024, after she pasted a verse by Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko onto his monument in St. Petersburg, according to OVD-Info, an independent human rights organization in Russia, A2 CNN reports. The verse, taken from Shevchenko's poem "My Testament," read: "O, bury me, then rise / And break your heavy chains / And water with the blood of tyrants / The freedom you have won."
A second case was filed against her in August 2024, following an interview with Radio Free Europe in which she called Russia's war in Ukraine "monstrous" and "criminal," according to OVD-Info.
During a court hearing, Kozyreva said she had only recited a poem and pasted a quote in Ukrainian – “nothing more,” the court’s press service said.
The anti-war activist has had previous run-ins with the law. In December 2022, while still in high school, she was arrested for writing “Murderers, you bombed it. Judas,” on an installation dedicated to the twinning of the Russian city of St. Petersburg with the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to the human rights organization.
The following year, she was fined for “discredit” and expelled from the university for a post on a Russian social media platform discussing the “imperialist nature of war,” according to Memorial, one of the most respected human rights organizations in Russia.
Describing Kozyreva as a political prisoner, Memorial called the charges against her "absurd" in a statement last year, saying they were aimed at suppressing dissent.
Prosecutors had asked for a six-year sentence for Kozyreva, the independent Russian media channel SOTA Vision reported from inside the courtroom. Reuters footage showed Kozyreva smiling and waving to supporters as she left the court.
Her lawyer told Reuters they are likely to appeal the decision. Amnesty International’s Russia director, Natalia Zvyagina, condemned the decision as “another chilling reminder of what the Russian authorities are prepared to do to silence peaceful opposition to the war in Ukraine.”
"Darya Kozyreva is being punished for quoting a classic of 19th-century Ukrainian poetry, for speaking out against an unjust war, and for refusing to remain silent. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Darya Kozyreva and all those imprisoned under wartime censorship laws," Zviagina said in a statement.
Russia has a history of trying to suppress opposition to the war, especially among the younger generation. Last year, CNN reported that at least 35 minors have faced politically motivated criminal charges in Russia since 2009, according to OVD-Info. Of those, 23 cases have been initiated since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
More than 1,500 people are currently imprisoned for political reasons in Russia, according to a count by OVD-Info, with the crackdown on dissent having escalated since the start of the war. As of December 2024, at least 20,070 people had been detained for anti-war stances, and there were 9,369 cases of “discrediting the army,” which included actions such as posting on social media or wearing Ukrainian flag symbols, according to OVD-Info. (A2 Televizion)
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