A Russian court has sentenced 19-year-old activist Daria Kozyreva to nearly three years in prison for her protests against the war in Ukraine. The court found her guilty of "discrediting" the Russian army after she displayed a poster featuring Ukrainian poetry in a public square and spoke to a media outlet about her views.
During the trial, which took place on Friday, Kozyreva maintained her innocence, calling the charges against her a “fabrication.” She expressed her belief that she had done nothing wrong and stated, “My conscience is clear. Because the truth is never guilty.”
Kozyreva’s activism began when she was just 17. In December 2022, she painted the words “Murderers, you bombed it. Judases” on a sculpture outside Saint Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, a tribute to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol that suffered severe destruction during the war. In early 2024, she was fined for her online posts about Ukraine and subsequently expelled from her medical studies at Saint Petersburg State University.
On the second anniversary of the war, Kozyreva taped a piece of paper with a quote from Taras Shevchenko, a prominent Ukrainian poet, onto his statue in a local park. This act led to her arrest and nearly a year in pre-trial detention before she was placed under house arrest earlier this year.
Amnesty International has condemned the court’s decision, highlighting it as a troubling example of the Russian government’s efforts to silence dissent. Natalia Zviagina, the organization’s Russia director, stated that Kozyreva is facing punishment simply for quoting poetry and opposing the war. Amnesty is calling for her immediate release, along with others imprisoned under similar laws.
Currently, Kozyreva is one of around 234 individuals in Russia who are imprisoned for their anti-war stance, according to the human rights group Memorial. The situation for dissenters in Russia has become increasingly dire since the invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, with many facing severe legal repercussions for their views.