Russia jails 19-year old for condemning its war in Ukraine

Daria Kozyreva, a young activist who used 19th-century poetry and graffiti to protest the Ukrainian war, received a nearly three-year prison sentence from a Russian court.

Kozyreva, 19, was found guilty of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian army after she repeatedly displayed lines of Ukrainian verse on a public square and gave an interview to Sever, according to a witness from the court on Friday. Russian-language programming from Radio Free Europe’s Realii.

She received an eight-month prison sentence totaling two years and eight.

According to a trial transcript that Mediazona, an independent news outlet, Kozyreva entered a not-guilty plea on Friday, calling the case against her “one big fabrication.”

I don’t feel guilty. According to Mediazona’s transcript, she said, “My conscience is clear.”

“The truth is never guilty,” he says.

Kozyreva sprayed the phrase “Murderers, you bombed it” in December 2022 at the age of 17. Judases, a sculpture of two intertwined hearts depicting the city’s connections to Mariupol, a Ukrainian city that was largely destroyed during a siege earlier that year, was erected outside Saint Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum in black paint on a sculpture of the city.

Kozyreva was kicked out of Saint Petersburg State University’s medical school in early 2024 after being fined 30,000 roubles ($370) for online content about Ukraine.

She then taped a piece of paper containing a passage from Taras Shevchenko, the father of contemporary Ukrainian literature, to a statue of him in a Saint Petersburg park on the occasion of the second anniversary of the conflict:

“Oh bury me, rise up, and break your heavy chains with the blood of the tyrants,” you ask.

Before being released this February, Kozyreva was immediately detained and placed in pre-trial detention for almost a year.

Punished for quoting poetry

The verdict, according to Amnesty International’s director for Russia, “is yet another chilling reminder of how far the Russian authorities will go to silence peaceful opposition to their war in Ukraine.”

In a statement, she said, “Daria 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 unrestricted release of Daria Kozyreva and all others who are incarcerated under “war censorship laws.”

According to a report from Memorial, a Russian human rights organization that won the Nobel Prize, Kozyreva is one of an estimated 234 people currently imprisoned in Russia for their antiwar positions.

Since Russia began its massive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it has also started to happen more frequently.

Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was detained last year on suspicion of attempting to obtain military secrets. He is currently awaiting trial in custody. He was “wrongfully detained” by the United States, and they want his release.