A Russian teenager faces a year in prison for posting on social media criticizing the war in Ukraine

CNN
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Olesia Krivts’ sports counter-put it in. A tattoo on one wrist and a bracelet that follows her every move on the other.

A 19-year-old from Russia’s Arkhangelsk region must wear a device under house arrest after being charged with social media posts that authorities say defame the Russian military and condone terrorism.

Russian officials added Krivtsova to a list of terrorists and extremists, along with ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, for posting an Instagram story about the Crimean bridge explosion In October, he also criticized Russia for invading Ukraine.

Krivtsova, a student at the Northern (Arctic) Federal University in the northwestern city of Arkhangelsk, also faces criminal charges for defaming the Russian military for allegedly re-declaring the war in a student chat room on the Russian social network VK.

Krivtsova is currently under house arrest in her mother’s apartment in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk Oblast, she is prohibited from accessing the Internet and using other means of communication.

“Olesya’s case is not the first, and it will not be the last,” Alexei Kishin, Krivtsova’s lawyer, told CNN.

Kishin said the teenager could face up to three years in prison for defaming the Russian military and up to seven years under the terrorism justification article. However, Krivcova’s legal defense hopes for a lighter sentence such as a fine.

Independent human rights monitor OVD information He said that in 2022, at least 61 cases were filed in Russia accused of justifying terrorism on the Internet, including 26 so far.

Olesya’s mother, Natalia Krivtsova, says the government is trying to issue a warning to the public, with her daughter being “publicly flogged” for not keeping her views to herself.

“We live in the Arkhangelsk region and it’s a huge area, but it’s very far from the center.” There are no more protests in Arkhangelsk, so they are trying to suppress everything that was left in the first phase.”

Aleksandr Novikov, the local head of the Communist Party, mocked the teenager on state television, calling her an idiot who should be sent to the front lines in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region so she could “stare in the eyes” of military combat as part of the Archangel Battalion.

This is not the first meeting with the authorities for Olesja Krivcova due to the public publication of her views. Last May, she faced administrative charges for defaming the Russian military by distributing anti-war posters.

Things got even more serious when she was accused of defaming the Russian military on social media last October. According to Krivcova’s lawyer, repeating the act from the same article turns into a criminal proceeding.

“She has a strong sense of justice, which makes life difficult for her.” The inability to remain silent is now a great sin in the Russian Federation,” her mother told CNN.

According to Natalija Krivtsova, on December 26, the police broke into the apartment where her daughter lived with her husband Ilija, forcing the young people to lie on the floor and threatening them with a sledgehammer, to which the police said “hello” from Wagner Group, a private military contractor on headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin.

CNN has reached out to Arkhangelsk State Police for comment.

Olesya was very scared because she saw the video on which A Prisoner was killed, her mother told CNN.

In the infamous video referenced by Natalia Krivtsova, mercenaries from the Wagner group, which actively recruits prisoners, execute ex-convict Yevgeny Nozin with a sledgehammer after he tried to escape from his post. The description of the video reads: “The traitor received a primitive, traditional Wagnerian punishment.”

“The country has a strange policy: prisoners go to war, children go to prisons,” she said.