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The Russian activist Lyudmila Vasilyeva, an 84-year-old survivor of the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War, was a fine of a court a fine after protest against the Russian war in Ukraine.
During her hearing in St. Petersburg on Friday, Mrs. Vasilyeva was commissioned to pay 10,000 rubles ($ 126; £ 93) for “discrediting” of the Russian army.
The charges with regard to a handwritten poster that she stopped earlier this year with the text: “People, let’s stop the war. We are responsible for peace on earth on the planet Earth. With love, Lyudmila Vasilyeva, child of the Lingrad -blockade.”
Russia has recorded the criticism of his military action in Ukraine since he launched his full invasion of his neighbor in 2022.
In an interview with AFP prior to her hearing at the court of KuibyShevsky on Friday, she said she felt “bitterness” and “pain” about the fate of her country.
“I have always been someone who is not indifferent, from my childhood. I have always been to the side of the weak,” she said.
She was greeted by dozens of supporters outside the courtroom. Images showed her to hold flowers and receive applause.
The 84-year-old survived the siege of Leningrad as a very young child with her four brothers and sisters and mother.
The military blockade of Leningrad by Nazi Germany lasted 872 days, from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944. About 800,000 people died of hunger, cold and shelling by Nazi troops.
To AFP, Mrs. Vasilyeva said that her mother always told her: “” We will get through everything, as long as there is no war “”.
The name of the city of Leningrad was restored in 1991 in the name of the pre-Soviet era, St. Petersburg.
Mrs. Vasilyeva has long been a critic of the Russian war with Ukraine that was held several times in 2022.
Last year she ran for Governor of St. Petersburg, but could not collect the required number of signatures for a nomination, as reported by BBC Russian.
The Russian law that “discredit” the army has been applied to a wide range of actions that interprets the Kremlin as a support for Ukraine or criticism of the war.
They include the display of anti -war posters, with messages ranging from “no war” to eight asterisks – the number of Russian letters that “no war” games.
The war in Ukraine has been raging for more than three years and military experts are estimating that between 165,000 and 235,000 Russian service providers have been killed on full scale since the full invasion.
Ukraine last updated his victim figures in December 2024, when President Volodymyr Zenskyy recognized 43,000 Ukrainian military deaths. Western analysts believe that this figure is an education.
