For the “crime” of speaking out in defense of Ukraine’s sovereignty, 19-year-old Darya Kozyreva was sentenced by a court in St. Petersburg April 18 to two years and eight months in prison for “discrediting” the Russian army.
The Russian teenager had been arrested on Feb. 24, 2024, the second anniversary of Moscow’s murderous invasion of Ukraine, for pasting part of a poem, “My Testament,” by Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko, onto a statue of him in a park there. It read: “Oh bury me, then rise ye up/And break your heavy chains/And water with the tyrants blood/The freedom you have gained.” She was held in pretrial detention for nearly a year.
A second case was brought against her in August for calling Russia’s war in Ukraine “monstrous” and “criminal” in an interview she did with Sever.Realii, a Russian-language service of Radio Free Europe.
In a statement to the court, Kozyreva made clear her determination to stand by her beliefs. “Moscow hasn’t conquered Ukraine,” she said. “The heroic Ukrainian people stood up to defend their homeland. And at the cost of countless lives, they held their ground.”
She began her remarks by reading in Ukrainian from another of Shevchenko’s poems, describing “the glory of Ukraine.” The prosecutor immediately interrupted her, insisting that under court procedures she had to recite it in Russian. Kozyreva continued reading — in Ukrainian.
“Our people bled for their freedom over centuries,” she said in her statement. “They will not surrender it now.” Kozyreva added that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “miscalculated” with his military assault against Ukraine.
“Putin still cannot grasp the concept of Ukrainian sovereignty. What he wants, really, is a meek and submissive Malorossia, or ‘Little Russia.’ Ideally, a province with no will of its own. A place that obeys his every word, speaks a foreign tongue, and slowly forgets its own,” she said. “He simply couldn’t believe that his ‘Little Russia’ dream was gone, forever. Ukrainians won’t let their country be turned into that.”
“I still dream that Ukraine will reclaim every inch of its territory: Donbas, Crimea, all of it,” she said. “But Ukraine has already won.”
As opposition to Putin’s war continues to grow in Russia, the regime’s response has been increasingly harsh repression. OVD-Info reports more than 1,500 people are currently jailed in Russia on political grounds, and over 20,000 have been detained for expressing anti-war views since the invasion began in February 2022.