A Russian court has sentenced 19-year-old activist Daria Kozyreva to two years and eight months in prison for using poetry and graffiti to protest the war in Ukraine—a verdict that has drawn strong condemnation from human rights groups.
Kozyreva was found guilty on Friday of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian military, after displaying a poster bearing Ukrainian verse in a public square and giving an interview to Sever.Realii, a Russian-language service of Radio Free Europe. A Reuters witness at the court confirmed the sentencing.
During the trial, Kozyreva pleaded not guilty, describing the charges as “one big fabrication.”
“I have no guilt. My conscience is clear,” she said in a courtroom statement published by independent outlet Mediazona. “Because the truth is never guilty.”
Kozyreva’s activism began at just 17 years old, when she spray-painted the words “Murderers, you bombed it. Judases,” on a sculpture outside Saint Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum in December 2022. The artwork symbolized the city’s connection with Mariupol, a Ukrainian city devastated by Russian bombardment.
In early 2024, following a 30,000-rouble ($370) fine for online posts about Ukraine, she was expelled from the medical faculty at Saint Petersburg State University. A month later, on the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion, she taped a piece of paper bearing a verse by Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko onto a statue of him in a city park. The lines read:
“Oh bury me, then rise ye up / And break your heavy chains / And water with the tyrants’ blood / The freedom you have gained.”
She was arrested shortly after and spent nearly a year in pre-trial detention before being placed under house arrest in February.
Amnesty International’s Russia director, Natalia Zviagina, described Friday’s verdict as “a chilling reminder of how far the Russian authorities will go to silence peaceful opposition.”
“Daria Kozyreva is being punished for quoting a classic of 19th-century Ukrainian poetry, for speaking out against an unjust war, and for refusing to stay silent,” Zviagina said in a statement. “We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Daria Kozyreva and everyone imprisoned under ‘war censorship laws.’”
According to Memorial, a Nobel Prize-winning Russian human rights group, Kozyreva is one of at least 234 people currently imprisoned in Russia for their antiwar views.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has intensified its crackdown on dissent, with rising arrests linked to espionage, information-sharing, and antiwar activism.
Kozyreva’s case, marked by defiance and the use of art as protest, has become a symbol of the deepening repression faced by young activists and critics of the war.
Follow us on:
