SME
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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 beneath 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 listing of terrorists/extremists. She posted an Instagram story in October concerning the blast on the Crimean Bridge. It additionally criticised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Krivtsova was a pupil of Northern (Arctic) Federal College. This college is situated in Arkhangelsk’s northwestern area.
At present, Krivtsova is staying beneath home arrest in her mom’s condominium in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk area, banned from logging on and utilizing different types of communication.
“Olesya’s case is just not the primary, neither is it the final,” Alexei Kichin, Krivtsova’s lawyer, advised SME.
Kichin said that {the teenager} may face three years imprisonment for discrediting Russia’s military, and 7 years beneath Article of Justification of Terrorism. Nonetheless, Krivtsova’s authorized protection hopes for a softer punishment reminiscent of a effective.
Unbiased human rights monitor OVD Information mentioned that Russia had acquired not less than 61 felony instances in 2022 for justification of terrorism by way of the web. There have been 26 convictions to this point.
Olesya’s mom, Natalya Krivtsova, says the federal government is making an attempt to offer a warning to the general public, along with her daughter being in impact “publicly flogged” for not retaining her views to herself.
“We stay within the Arkhangelsk area and it is a huge area however too distant from the middle. There aren’t any extra protests in Arkhangelsk, so they’re making an attempt to strangle the whole lot that’s left at its early stage,” Natalya Krivtsova advised SME.
An area head of the Communist Get together, 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 jap Donbas area in order that she may “look into the eyes” of the navy preventing 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 Military by publishing anti-war propaganda.
The state of affairs turned much more sophisticated when Krivtsova was charged with discrediting Russia’s military by way of social media in October. In keeping with Krivtsova’s lawyer, a repeat offense beneath the identical article turns right into a felony case.
“She has a heightened sense of justice, which makes her life arduous. The shortcoming to stay silent is now a significant sin within the Russian Federation,” her mom advised SME.
In keeping with Natalya Krivtsova, police burst into an condominium on December 26 the place her daughter was dwelling along with her husband Ilya, forcing the younger folks to lie face down on the bottom and allegedly threatening them with a sledgehammer, which the officers advised her was a “hey” 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 as a result of she noticed the video by which a prisoner was killed with a sledgehammer,” her mom advised 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 acquired the normal, primordial Wagnerian punishment.”
“The state has some unusual insurance policies: prisoners go to battle, and kids go to jail,” she mentioned.
