ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- “This war is the destruction of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Viktoria Petrova said in her final courtroom speech on December 21, calling Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine “a crime against humanity.”
“It is the annexation of sovereign territory, the dislocation of millions of people, the loss of homes and loved ones…tens of millions of tragedies,” said Petrova, 29, at her trial in St. Petersburg. “Pictures of suffering are now searing into my memory. Many will remain there forever.”
'Vika Loved The Wrong Things'
Since October, the closed hearings in Petrova’s trial on charges of disseminating “false” information about the Russian armed forces have taken place in the psychiatric hospital where she has been held. Prosecutors have argued that Petrova’s purported crime was motivated and aggravated by “political hatred.”
“Apparently, in the absence of real arguments, they choose this path: if you don’t love the president, it means you don’t love your country,” Petrova’s lawyer, Anastasia Pilipenko, told RFE/RL’s North.Realities. “If you don’t love something, it means you hate it. If you read foreign media, it means you hate your country. According to the prosecution, Vika loved the wrong things…and insidiously ignored the Defense Ministry’s briefings.”
The court is expected to hand down its verdict on December 25. In a throwback to one of the most reviled practices of the Soviet Union, prosecutors have asked the judge to sentence her to enforced psychiatric hospitalization.
Petrova was arrested at her home in St. Petersburg on May 6, 2022. Agents from the Interior Ministry’s Anti-Extremism Center and an organized-crime unit searched her apartment and confiscated her telephone, her computer, and several anti-war posters. Law enforcement had been investigating her social media posts since at least March 25, Pilipenko said.
Although she had never been politically active before and her social media account -- with about 300 readers -- generally featured photos from the gym and portraits of her cat, Petrova told police at her initial questioning that she had every intention of continuing to write against the war.
At an early court hearing, the defense requested that she be held under house arrest pending trial.
“The judge was doing the weekend shift,” Pilipenko told RFE/RL at the time. “There was one fascinating moment when I asked for [house arrest] and the investigator said, ‘No objection.’ The judge asked, ‘What did you say?’ And he answered again, ‘No objection.’ Then the judge made a little gesture and asked again. This time the investigator sighed and asked the judge to place the defendant in custody.”
After she had been held for nearly a year without trial, a cellmate filed a complaint against Petrova alleging that she “continued to spread anti-war propaganda” in jail. As a result, a judge sent her for a psychiatric examination during which doctors determined she “could not and cannot understand her actions or control them.” It was tantamount to a diagnosis of mental incompetence.
Before her arrest, Petrova had never sought or received psychological care.
The court then appointed a bureaucrat from the St. Petersburg district where Petrova rented an apartment as her “legal representative,” despite a defense motion that her uncle, with whom she is close, be named. On October 24, the court ordered her confined to the Skvortsov-Stepanov Psychiatric Hospital. According to the Telegram channel Moi Raion, which covered the hearing, the appointed legal representative agreed with the decision, telling the court: “She has harmed herself and it is better she remain there. That way she won’t offend again.”
Forcible Injections
Since she has been in psychiatric confinement, Petrova has faced mistreatment, Pilipenko said. A group of male staff members forced her to strip naked for a “physical inspection.” She was not given sanitary pads while menstruating.
“Blood was flowing down her legs, and everyone was mocking her,” Pilipenko told RFE/RL.
When Petrova refused to shower in front of staff members, she was threatened with corporal punishment.
At times, she was bound to her bed and forcibly injected with unknown substances that left her unable to speak for days.
In her closing remarks on December 21, Petrova concluded by directly addressing President Vladimir Putin, the government, the Security Council, the members of both houses of parliament, “state propagandists,” and “all those affiliated with the so-called ‘special military operation” -- the war against Ukraine.
“I demand the immediate cessation of military activity on the territory of Ukraine and the immediate opening of negotiations aimed at the diplomatic resolution of the conflict,” she told the court. “I also demand the decriminalization of the [Criminal Code] articles on military censorship and the release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners.”
The prosecution’s closing statement, Pilipenko argued, was a real “example of political hatred.”
“Only it wasn’t a post on social media, but an official statement that had most likely been approved by several senior bosses,” she said. “Cold, official, approved, and bolstered by the power of hatred.”
