CNN
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Olesya Krivtsova sports activities an anti-Putin tattoo on one ankle and a bracelet that tracks her each transfer on the opposite.
The 19-year-old from Russia’s Arkhangelsk area should put on the machine whereas she is underneath home arrest after she was charged over social media posts that authorities say discredit the Russian military and justify terrorism.
Russian officers added Krivtsova to the listing of terrorists and extremists, on a par with ISIS, al Qaeda and the Taliban, for posting an Instagram story concerning the explosion on the Crimean bridge in October that additionally criticized Russia for invading Ukraine.
Krivtsova, a pupil at Northern (Arctic) Federal College within the northwestern metropolis of Arkhangelsk, can also be dealing with felony costs for discrediting the Russian military for making an allegedly crucial repost of the warfare in a pupil chat on the Russian social community VK.
Presently, Krivtsova is staying underneath home arrest in her mom’s house in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk area, banned from going surfing and utilizing different types of communication.
“Olesya’s case will not be the primary, neither is it the final,” Alexei Kichin, Krivtsova’s lawyer, advised CNN.
Unbiased human rights monitor OVD-Data stated not less than 61 instances had been initiated in Russia in 2022 on the costs of justification of terrorism on the web, with 26 resulting in sentencing to this point.
Olesya’s mom, Natalya Krivtsova, says the federal government is attempting to provide a warning to the general public, together with her daughter being in impact “publicly flogged” for not protecting her views to herself.
“We reside 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 attempting to strangle every thing that’s left at its early stage,” Natalya Krivtsova advised CNN.
An area head of the Communist Social gathering, Alexander Novikov, publicly mocked {the teenager} on state tv, calling her a idiot who needs to be despatched to the entrance strains in Ukraine’s japanese 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. Final Might, she confronted administrative costs for discrediting the Russian military by distributing anti-war posters.
Issues grew to become extra severe when she was accused of discrediting the Russian military on social media final October. In keeping with Krivtsova’s lawyer, a repeat offense underneath the identical article turns right into a felony case.
“She has a heightened sense of justice, which makes her life onerous. The lack to stay silent is now a significant sin within the Russian Federation,” her mom advised CNN.
In keeping with Natalya Krivtsova, police burst into an house on December 26 the place her daughter was residing together 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 “hi there” from the Wagner Group, a personal navy contractor headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
CNN has reached out to the state police in Arkhangelsk for remark.
“Olesya was very frightened as a result of she noticed the video through which a prisoner was killed with a sledgehammer,” her mom advised CNN.
Within the infamous video referred to by Natalya Krivtsova, mercenaries from the Wagner Group, which actively recruits prisoners, apparently executed a former convict, Yevgeny Nuzhin, with a sledgehammer after he tried to flee his submit. The video description stated: “The traitor obtained the standard, primordial Wagnerian punishment.”
“The state has some unusual insurance policies: prisoners go to warfare, and youngsters go to jail,” she stated.
