Artist Sasha Skochilenko sentenced to 7 years in prison for anti-war stickers

On November 16, 2023, the Vasileostrovsky District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced Sasha Skochilenko, accused of spreading false information about the Russian army, to 7 years in prison. After the verdict was announced, many people who had come to the court to support Sasha began chanting “Shame!” loudly, and Sasha herself was escorted out of the courtroom to loud applause.

The St. Petersburg artist has been in custody since April 2022. In March 2022, Sasha replaced price tags in a local grocery store in St. Petersburg with anti-war stickers. Sasha was denounced by a local pensioner who was outraged by the inscription: “The Russian army bombed an art school in Mariupol. About 400 people were hiding there from the shelling”. Skochilenko admitted that she had distributed the stickers, but claimed that the information was not false, so she did not plead guilty.

Throughout the investigation, Sasha Skochilenko’s defence repeatedly requested that Sasha be released under house arrest or with travel restrictions, as she has numerous health problems, including gluten intolerance, a heart defect and bipolar affective disorder. Despite this, Sasha was sentenced to 7 years in prison.

Read more about Sasha Skochilenko’s case here.

Photo: Anton Vaganov, Reuters