ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- A court in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, has sent an 18-year-old activist to pretrial detention on a charge of repeatedly discrediting Russian armed forces involved in Moscow's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
The hearing on the case against Darya Kozyreva on February 27 was held behind closed doors as investigators said the case materials may contain classified information.
Kozyreva was detained on February 24, on the day of the second anniversary of Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, after she glued a poster on a monument of prominent Ukrainian writer, poet, and thinker Taras Shevchenko with an excerpt of his well-known poem My Testament.
"Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants' blood
The freedom you have gained."
The poster was so strongly glued that police as unable to remove it and had to cover it with a black plastic bag.
Kozyreva was initially charged with vandalism in January last year after she left a comment in December 2022 on an art installation symbolizing "friendship" between St. Petersburg and Ukraine's city of Mariupol, which was destroyed by Russian bombs during Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The investigation of that case is still under way.
On December 18, 2022, less than a week after the installation was unveiled in St. Petersburg's Palace Square, the words "Murderers, you bombed it to ruins yourselves!" appeared on the installation.
Kozyreva was expelled from St. Petersburg State University last month after she was found guilty of discrediting Russian armed forces and ordered to pay a 30,000 ruble ($320) fine in December.
That charge stemmed from Kozyreva's online posts in 2022 criticizing Russian laws on discrediting Russian armed forces that were introduced shortly after Russia launched its full-scale unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022.