A Russian court has ordered an artist to be detained behind bars for allegedly changing supermarket price labels with messages protesting against Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.
Alexandra Skochilenko faces up to a decade in prison for her stealth protest after being charged under a new law banning “fake news” about Russia’s armed forces.
The Vasileostrovsky District Court of St. Petersburg has ruled that Skochilenko must remain in pre-trial detention until May 31, the court’s press service told Telegram.
Investigators accused her of “putting pieces of paper in place of price labels containing deliberately false information about the use of the Russian armed forces on March 31 at a supermarket in Perekryostok.”
They described her motive as “political hatred of Russia”, meaning she faces a harsh sentence if convicted, ranging from a fine of 3 million rubles (£ 27,000) to between 5 and 10 years in prison.
Skochilenko describes himself on Instagram as an independent artist and musician. She was fined 10,000 rubles in March for participating in a protest on February 24, the day Russian troops entered Ukraine.
“I do not support the war in Ukraine. “I took to the streets today to say this loudly,” she wrote on Instagram.
She smiled and made V signs inside the cell for the accused in the courtroom, the local news site fontanka.ru reported.
The law against “fake news” obliges to publicly describe Moscow’s actions in Ukraine only as a “special military operation” or to face up to 15 years in prison. This has led several media outlets to stop reporting in Russia.
The St. Petersburg court ruled that Skochilenko posed a risk of absconding because she did not live at her officially registered address and had previously been fined for protesting.
In the Russian city of Kazan, activists have replaced food price tags with anti-war propaganda messages. Photo: Distribution
The artist reportedly created a series of postcards with slogans such as “Violence is never the way out” and images of symbols of peace and the Ukrainian flag.
On Tuesday, Andrei Makedonov, a 59-year-old doctor, was detained for a similar protest at a supermarket in St. Petersburg, Fontanka reported.
Also Tuesday, another St. Petersburg resident, Tatiana Popova, was fined 30,000 rubles for hanging toys with “no to war” slogans in a supermarket.
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