STORY: A Russian court has handed down a prison sentence of two years and eight months to 19-year-old Darya Kozyreva, an activist who used 19th-century poetry and graffiti to protest against the conflict in Ukraine.
Kozyreva pleaded not guilty, calling the case against her "one big fabrication," according to a trial transcript compiled by Mediazona, an independent news outlet.
:: Rafail Polyakov, Kozyreva's lawyer
"I believe she should have been acquitted. Although the term she was sentenced to is so insignificant, this is still real imprisonment. I thought that the shift which this criminal case had undergone (refers to court softening the preventive measure to Kozyreva in early February) was bringing us closer to freedom. I don't know, I can't analyze it now. We will examine the verdict. Most likely we will appeal it."
A Reuters witness in the court said she was found guilty of repeatedly "discrediting" the Russian army.
In December 2022, Kozyreva sprayed "Murderers, you bombed it. Judases" in black paint on a sculpture of two intertwined hearts, erected outside St Petersburg's Hermitage Museum
The symbol represented the city's links with Mariupol, a Ukrainian city largely razed to the ground during Russia's months-long siege.
:: File
In early 2024, Kozyreva was fined 30,000 roubles, or $370, for posting about Ukraine online and she was expelled from the medical faculty of St Petersburg State University.
She is among an estimated 234 people imprisoned in Russia for their anti-war position, according to a tally by Memorial, a Nobel Prize-winning Russian human rights group.
Addressing the court on Friday, Kozyreva said, "I have no guilt, my conscience is clear."
