Aleksandra Skochilenko, a 33-year-old Russian artist on trial for using price tags in a city store to distribute information about Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has called the case against her "strange and funny" as her actions were an attempt to support peace.
Skochilenko was arrested in April 2022 after she replaced price tags in a supermarket in late March with pieces of paper containing what investigators called "knowingly false information about the use of the Russian armed forces."
In closing arguments at a trial in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, on November 14, Skochilenko expressed gratitude to the initial investigator assigned to her investigation after he quit his job in protest against the case.
She also questioned why other investigators and prosecutors aren't facing the same charge because while she wrote on just five price tags, they spread her message across the country by publicizing the case, otherwise only "an old lady, a cashier, and a security officer" at a store in St. Petersburg would have had access to it.
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"I am a pacifist...Wars are initiated by combatants, but peace comes thanks to pacifists. By incarcerating pacifists, you put off the long-awaited day of peace," Skochilenko said.
Prosecutors asked the court last week to convict Skochilenko and sentence her to eight years in prison.
Skochilenko has several medical conditions, including a congenital heart defect, bipolar disorder, gluten intolerance, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Since her arrest, rights groups have called for her immediate release.
Weeks after Russia started its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that allows for lengthy prison terms for distributing "deliberately false information" about Russian military operations as the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative about its war in Ukraine.
That includes a prohibition on calling it a war. Moscow officially calls it a "special military operation."
The law envisages sentences of up to 10 years in prison for individuals convicted of an offense, while the penalty for the distribution of "deliberately false information" about the Russian armed forces that leads to "serious consequences" is 15 years in prison.
It also makes it illegal "to make calls against the use of Russian troops to protect the interests of Russia" or "for discrediting such use" with a possible penalty of up to three years in prison. The same provision applies to calls for sanctions against Russia.
Skochilenko is expected to make her final statement on November 16 before the court announces its verdict.