Alexandra Skochilenko faces up to a decade in prison for her secret protest after being charged under a new law banning “fake news” about Russia’s armed forces. The St. Petersburg Vasileostrovsky District Court has ruled that Skochilenko should remain in custody until May 31, the court’s press service told the Telegram. Investigators accused her of “putting pieces of paper instead of price tags that knowingly contained false information about the use of the Russian armed forces” at a Perekryostok supermarket on March 31. They described her motive as “political hatred for Russia”, meaning she faces a harsh sentence if found guilty, ranging from a fine of 3 million rubles (.000 27,000) to five to ten years in prison. Skochilenko describes herself on Instagram as an independent artist and musician. He was fined 10,000 rubles in March for taking part in a rally on February 24, the day Russian troops entered Ukraine. “I do not support the war in Ukraine. “I took to the streets today to say so loudly,” he wrote on Instagram. He smiled and made V-marks inside the cage for the accused in the courtroom, the local news website fontanka.ru reported. The law against “fake news” makes it mandatory to publicly describe Moscow’s actions in Ukraine only as a “special military operation”, otherwise it faces up to 15 years in prison. This has led many media outlets to stop publishing reports in Russia. The St. Petersburg court ruled that Skochilenko was in danger of flying because she did not live at her officially registered address and had previously been fined for protesting. In the Russian city of Kazan, activists replaced prices at grocery stores with messages of anti-war unrest. Photo: Brochure The artist is said to have created a series of postcards with slogans such as “Violence is never the way out” and images with symbols of peace and the Ukrainian flag. Andrei Makedonov, a 59-year-old doctor, was arrested on Tuesday for a similar supermarket protest in St. Petersburg, Fontanka reported. Also Tuesday, another St. Petersburg resident, Tatiana Popova, was fined 30,000 rubles for hanging “no to war” toys in a supermarket.
