Russian teen faces 10 years in Jail for anti-war posts; threatened of sledgehammer execution by Wagner group

Moscow: A 19-year-old girl from Russia’s Arkhangelsk region is under house arrest for several months with a tracking device in her hand that tracks all her moves.

As per reports she may face 10 years in jail for justifying terrorism and discrediting Russian army by making social media posts criticising the war with Ukraine and also sporting an anti-Putin tattoo on one ankle.

Olesya Krivtsova was labelled a terrorist and extremist for sharing an Instagram story about the explosion on the Crimean bridge in October that also denounced Russia for invading Ukraine, placing her on par with ISIS, al Qaeda, and the Taliban.

On December 26, police barged into the apartment where Krivtsova lived with her husband. They forced both of them to lie face down on the floor and allegedly threatened them with a sledgehammer, which the officers claimed was a “hello” from the Yevgeny Prigozhin-led Wagner Group.

Her mother informed that she was shown a video by the forces in which a prisoner was executed with a sledgehammer.
Olesya was scared after viewing a video, claims her mother.

In the video Wagner Group, which aggressively recruits convicts into army, killed Yevgeny Nuzhin, a former prisoner, with a sledgehammer as he tried to abandon his station.

“The traitor received the traditional, primitive Wagnerian penalty,” the video description read.

Krivtsova, a student at Northern (Arctic) Federal University in the city of Arkhangelsk in northwest Russia, is also being prosecuted for allegedly defaming the Russian army by reposting a discussion on the conflict in a student chat on the Russian social network VK.

Reports say that she was caught after her friends outed her to the Russian forces for spreading the hearsay in the students char room.

Krivtsova is currently under house arrest in her mother’s apartment in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk area. She is not permitted to access the internet or other kinds of communication while she is there.

According to Krivtsova’s attorney Alexei Kichin, “Olesya’s case is not the first, nor is it the last.”

Olesya has a tattoo on one ankle of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s face on the body of a spider that says “Big Brother is Watching You” and on the other she has a monitoring bracelet, Natalia told media.

She cited figures released by an independent human rights watchdog OVD-Info saying at least 61 prosecutions involving the alleged online justification of terrorism were reportedly started in Russia in 2022, with 26 of those cases so far resulting in punishment.

Arkhangelsk region is a vast region but too remote from the center, claims Natalia.
Olesya Krivtsova, reportedly, has had run-ins with the law before for expressing her opinions in public.

She was charged administratively in May of last year for disseminating anti-war posters and defaming the Russian army.

When she was accused of defaming the Russian army on social media in October, things became a lot worse.

According to Krivtsova’s lawyer, a repeat offense under the same article turns into a criminal case.
Krivtsova’s mother told media that she made her life hard on her own because she had a very high sense of justice,

“The inability to remain silent is now a major sin in the Russian Federation,” she said.

The state police in Arkhangelsk have not yet issued a comment on the issue.

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