February 15: That’s because 20-year-old Olesya is under house arrest. She has an electronic tag on her leg. The police can monitor all her movements.
His alleged crime? Olesya was arrested for anti-war posts on social media. One of them referred to the explosion last October on the bridge linking Russia with the annexed Crimea.
“I posted an Instagram story about the bridge,” Olesya tells the BBC, “reflecting on how the Ukrainians were happy with what had happened.”
I had also shared a friend’s post about the war.
Then the drama began.
“I was on the phone with my mother,” Olesya recalls, “when I heard the front door open. A lot of policemen came in. They took the phone from me and yelled at me to get on the ground.”
Olesya was accused of justifying terrorism and discrediting the Russian armed forces. He faces up to 10 years in prison.
“I never imagined that someone could receive such a long prison sentence for posting something on the Internet,” says Olesya. “I had seen reports of crazy verdicts in Russia, but I didn’t pay much attention and kept talking.”
A student at the Northern Federal University in Arkhangelsk, Olesya has now been added to Russia’s official list of terrorists and extremists.
“When I realized that I had been put on the same list as school shooters and the Islamic State group, I thought it was crazy,” Olesya recalls.
Under the rules of his house arrest, he is prohibited from talking on the phone and going online.
Olesya has a striking image tattooed on her right leg: Russian President Vladimir Putin, depicted as a spider, with an Orwellian inscription: “Big Brother is watching you.”
It seems that in the case of Olesya, it was not Big Brother who was watching her, but her fellow students.
“A friend showed me a post about me in a chat,” says Olesya, “about how I was against the ‘special military operation.’ Most of the people in this chat were history students. They were discussing whether to report me to the authorities.”
The BBC has seen excerpts from the group chat.
In a comment, Olesya is accused of writing “provocative posts of a defeatist and extremist nature. This is out of place in wartime. It must be nipped in the bud.”
“First let’s try to discredit her. If she doesn’t succeed, let the security services deal with it.”
“The complaint is the duty of a patriot,” writes another.
Later, when the list of prosecution witnesses was read in court, Olesya recognized the names from the student chat.
A year has passed since the Kremlin launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine, the term it uses for Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor. Within weeks of the assault, President Putin was calling on the Russian public to separate the “true patriots from the scum and traitors.”
Since then, across Russia there have been reports of Soviet-style denunciations against critics of the war. They include students reporting on teachers and workers reporting on their peers.
Public criticism of the invasion, and that includes republishing other people’s criticisms, is dangerous. The Russian authorities expect full and unwavering support for the offensive in Ukraine. If you don’t support it, you are at least expected to remain silent. If you don’t keep quiet, there are a series of repressive laws to punish dissent. That includes laws against spreading “false information” about the military and “discrediting” the military.
In Arkhangelsk, a giant portrait of a Russian soldier killed in the Ukraine gazes out at the city from the side of a nine-story apartment block, along with the words: “To be a warrior means to live forever.”
The patriotic message is persuasive. On the streets of Arkhangelsk, we find little sympathy for the Russians facing trial for their anti-war remarks.
“People who discredit our army or spread fakes are sick in the head,” Konstantin tells me. “They should be sent to the front as cannon fodder.”
“I have a negative attitude towards critics of the special operation,” Ekaterina tells me.
But a long prison sentence for posting something online, isn’t that harsh? Asked.
“People should use their brains,” Ekaterina replies. “If they live in this country, if they enjoy all the benefits this country has to offer, if they are patriotic, they must abide by the law.”
Later that day, Olesya is allowed to leave her apartment. But only to attend a court hearing. Her defense attorneys are trying to persuade a judge to lift the restrictions on her movement.
Olesya’s T-shirt sports a picture of a police van with “School Bus” written on it. A comment on how young Russians are being punished for their criticism of the authorities.
The judge rules to keep her under house arrest.
“The state has no stomach for debate, democracy or freedom,” says Olesya. “But they can’t jail everyone. At some point they will run out of cells.”
