Sasha Skochylenko’s defense appealed against the sentence handed down to her

The artist Sasha Skochylenko appealed the sentence passed on her by a court in St. Petersburg on charges of spreading so-called fakes about the Russian army. This was reported by “Interfax” on Friday with reference to the joint press service of the city courts.

From the files of the Vasileostrovsky District Court, which considered the case, it follows that the complaint was filed by a lawyer on November 30.

The reason for the criminal prosecution of Skochylenko was the artist’s anti-war action. In the “Perekrestok” store, she pasted stickers on the price tags with information about the shelling of the Mariupol drama theater by the Russian military during the invasion of Ukraine and the deaths of civilians.

On November 16, the Vasileostrovsky Court of St. Petersburg sentenced Sasha Skochylenko to seven years in prison on the charge of spreading “fakes”. Judge Oksana Demyasheva announced the verdict. The artist acknowledged the fact of distributing the stickers, but stated that the information on them is not false, and therefore she does not consider herself guilty.

• After the verdict was announced, representatives of the Russian medical community wrote an open letter to President Vladimir Putin and called for the release of Skochylenko, fearing for her life. The artist spent more than one and a half years in prison, despite chronic diseases. In the appeal, the sentence was called unfair. It was noted that he was sentenced for “a pacifist action that does not violate the law.”