A Russian teenager faces years in prison over a social media post criticizing the war in Ukraine

CNN
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Olesya Krivtsova sports counter-put it in A tattoo on one ankle and a bracelet that tracks her every move on the other.

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

Russian officials added Krivtsova to the list of terrorists and extremists, along with ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, for posting an Instagram story about Explosion on the Crimean Bridge 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 reposting the war in a student chat on the Russian social network VK.

Currently, Krivtsova is under house arrest in her mother’s apartment in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk Region, prohibited from going online and using other means of communication.

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

Kishin said the teen could face up to three years in prison for defaming the Russian military and up to seven years in prison under the terrorism justification article. However, Krivtsova’s legal defense is hoping for a lighter punishment such as a fine.

Independent human rights monitor OVD information He said that at least 61 cases were filed in Russia in 2022 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 “publicly flogged” for not keeping her views to herself.

“We live in the Arkhangelsk region and it is a vast area but it is very far from the center. There are no more protests in Arkhangelsk, so they are trying to stifle whatever is left in its first stage.”

Aleksandr Novikov, a 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 can “look in the eye” of military combat as part of the Arkhangelsk battalion.

This is not Olesya Krivtsova’s first encounter with the authorities for publicly publishing 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 Krivtsova’s lawyer, repetition of the offense under the same article turns into a criminal case.

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

According to Natalya Krivtsova, on December 26 the police broke into an apartment where her daughter was living with her husband Ilya, forcing the young people to lie on the floor and threatening them with a sledgehammer, to which the officers told her “hello” from Wagner Groupa private military contractor headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin.

CNN has reached out to the State Police in Arkhangelsk for comment.

Olesya was very frightened because she saw the video in which A The prisoner was killed with a sledgehammerher mother told CNN.

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

“The state has some strange policies: prisoners go to war, children go to prison,” she said.