After serving more than two years of a seven-year sentence for putting up anti-war banners in a supermarket (ACAR post), Sasha Skochilenko , artists and musician from St. Petersburg, was released on 1 August in a prisoner swap between Russia and the West.
Source: The Art Newspaper
Amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina, a dual American-Russian citizen, was arrested and detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on 28 January in her hometown of Yekaterinburg, where she was visiting family. After Russian authorities accessed Karelina’s phone and discovered that she had donated about $50 to Razom, a pro-Ukrainian charity, in 2022, the Sverdlovsk regional court sentenced her on 8 August to 12 years in prison for treason.
Her conviction came two weeks after Russia and the West carried out the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War, where 24 people were released.
Sources: CNN, The Guardian
On Monday, June 8th, a military court in Moscow convicted theater director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk of terrorism charges and sentenced them to six years each in prison. Authorities claimed their Golden Mask awarded play “Finist, the Brave Falcon” justifies terrorism, in Russia punishable by up to seven years in prison (see ACAR posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ). Both have already been in custody for over a year, awaiting trial.
Sources: The Moscow Times , Fox News, TV5 Monde,
Yevgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk were arrested one year ago and have been accused of “justifying terrorism” in their award-winning play “Finist, the Brave Falcon”. (See ACAR post 1). Without a trial having taken place so far, the pre-trial detention has since been extended several times (2,3); on 10 May again by 6 months until 22 October 2024. In April, both were placed on a list of alleged “terrorists and extremists” by the authorities in Moscow. Berkovich is the mother of two underage children and had already been sentenced to eleven days in prison in 2022 for a protest action against the Russian war in Ukraine.
Source: Die Presse, Moscow Times
Another court hearing took place on 2 November. The public prosecutor’s office again applied for an extension of the pre-trial detention without presenting any evidence that the theatre makers were guilty. The court granted the public prosecutor’s request and extended the period of pre-trial detention until 10 January 2024.
In solidarity with those arrested, Berlin-based Russian-language theatre director Oleg Hristolübskiy staged a staged reading of “Finist, heller Falke” with Berlin actresses Katharina Spiering, Suse Wächter and Elisabeth Heckel, which was shown in Berlin on 28 November and 7 December, followed by discussions.
Sources: Finist heller Falke, Deutsche Welle (TV Report in Russian)
On 14 December, a Moscow court sentenced Russian playwright and director Ivan Vyrypaev in absentia to eight years in a penal colony. The prosecution had asked for a ten-year sentence. In May, Vyrypaev was put on the wanted list and arrested in absentia. It emerged in court that the case had been opened in October last year.
The playwright was found guilty in the case of disseminating “fakes” about the Russian military motivated by political hatred (Article 207.3, Part 2, Paragraph “d” of the Criminal Code). The court referred to Vyrypaevs public statements and interviews including an open letter to the Russian theatres from March last year where he has informed all Russian state theatres in which his plays have been performed that the money he receives from them will be donated to Ukrainian funds to support refugees.
Sources: Mediazona, Vypyarev.com