SOFIA -- While shooting a documentary in Ukraine in August, Bulgarian filmmaker Alexandra Mileva had visited Novohrodivka in the Donetsk region, a town under threat from advancing Russian troops.
"We were filming with some elderly people who were just sitting...on a bench and, every 10 seconds, we could hear boom-boom," she tells RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service. "They were explaining that they hoped that if they were hit by a bomb, they would die on the spot."
That would be better than being left injured, she says they told her, "because there was no one to take care of them."
Just days after her visit, around August 20, Novohrodivka fell to Russian forces.
Now back in Bulgaria, Mileva says she became incredibly upset, thinking of the people she had met in Ukraine. "I watched the news that there were civilian casualties. And that upset me tremendously," she says.
She decided that she couldn't stay silent any more. So, on August 29, she arrived at the Russian Cultural and Information Center in Sofia, armed with chalk and a Russian flag she had bought.
As she began to write "Murderers" in blue chalk on the sidewalk and started to set the flag on fire, she was confronted by staff and security guards from the cultural center.
Shortly afterwards, the police arrived, and there was a tense exchange, captured on video, with officers instructing Mileva not to burn or trample on the flag.
"I don't want you to do that in front of us, do you understand me?" a man in police uniform said. "Don't stamp on this thing in front of me, do you understand me?"
Finally, Mileva was arrested and then spent nearly 24 hours in custody. She says she wasn't initially told why she was being arrested, nor was she given access to legal counsel. She was then charged with petty hooliganism, which Bulgarian law defines as an "indecent display," an "offensive attitude," or actions that violate "public order."
Mileva's arrest came just before Bulgaria marks the 80th anniversary of a wartime coup d'etat, when, with Soviet troops advancing, an alliance of anti-fascist forces, including communists, overthrew the pro-German monarchy and the government.
While marked as an official holiday in the communist era, many in Bulgaria now see the date in 1944 as the beginning of Soviet domination, which lasted until the regime was overthrown in 1989.
Protest In Solidarity
The filmmaker's arrest sparked an immediate backlash. Protesters organized by Bulgaria United With One Purpose (BOEC), a civic organization that has railed against Russian influence, gathered at the cultural center on August 30. They burned a Russian flag and poured red paint on the building's steps in solidarity with Mileva.
Anton Mironov from BOEC and Bilyana Kotsakova, who organized Mileva's legal defense, both characterized her arrest as "repression." "There is no text in the Penal Code about insulting the Russian flag, and it appears that our repressive bodies protect foreign interests," Kotsakova told RFE/RL.
The case has prompted debate on Bulgaria's laws governing protest and free speech. While damaging the Bulgarian or EU flag is punishable by up to two years in prison, no such prohibition exists for flags of other nations.
"I think I have a right to protest as a citizen," Mileva says, "especially to protest against a country...that I believe puts our national security at risk."
While Bulgaria and Russia are united by their Slavic and Orthodox history, there is lingering resentment toward Russia and Russians due to the communist period, when Bulgaria was a loyal satellite state of the Soviet Union.
The public is divided, however, on the Ukraine war, with a recent Globsec report finding that only 44 percent of respondents thought that Russia was primarily responsible.
The Sofia District Court ultimately took Mileva's side, acquitting her of the hooliganism charge and saying that she had "exercised her right to free expression of opinion."
"It is true that Mileva's actions regarding the burning and tearing of the flag of the Russian Federation are provocative," read the court's August 30 decision. "But it is also true that [her actions] were not accompanied by rioting, vandalism, and disobedience to law enforcement."
The court ruling criticized the response of the police, stating that "the interference of the law enforcement authorities in her right to freedom of expression cannot be considered 'necessary.'"
RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service asked the Interior Ministry how it justified the intervention of the police but has not received a response.
Now, Mileva says, she is even more determined to keep working. She says that she still believes she needs to tell the stories of the people she met in Ukraine and is continuing work on her documentary.
"I think the only thing we can do is to keep talking about what's happening and about these tragedies," she says.
"So that they are not simply forgotten."
