Mathias Busekist
A St. Petersburg Court has sentenced a teen activist to nearly three years in prison for criticizing russian military.
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A court in St. Petersburg has sentenced 19-year-old activist Daria Kozyreva to two years and eight months in a medium-security penal colony for repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian military, The Moscow Times reports.
The verdict, delivered Friday by Judge Dmitry Ovrakh of the Petrogradsky District Court, also prohibits Kozyreva from posting online content for two and a half years.
To make matters even worse, prosecutors had sought a harsher punishment as they were calling for a six-year prison sentence.
Kozyreva, a vocal critic of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was arrested in February 2024 after attaching a poem by iconic Ukrainian writer Taras Shevchenko to his statue in St. Petersburg—a symbolic act of protest.
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Later, authorities brought additional charges against her in August, citing an interview she gave to Radio Free Europe after being expelled from St. Petersburg State University for her activism.
In court, Kozyreva rejected the accusations, stating: “My opinion is that the army has discredited itself after the large-scale invasion, so any statement against it will not discredit anything.”
During her closing remarks, she denounced the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and expressed admiration for the Ukrainian people.
“Ukraine is a free country, a free nation, and it will decide its own destiny,” she declared. “It’s clear that Putin cannot come to terms with the idea that Ukraine is a sovereign nation.”
Kozyreva had previously drawn the ire of Russian authorities in 2023 when she was arrested for defacing a public installation meant to symbolize the “brotherhood” between St. Petersburg and Mariupol—a Ukrainian city devastated during a prolonged Russian siege.
She had written: “Criminals, you bombed it to ruins.”
