Elena Osipova’s anti-war exhibition was closed the next day

The anti-war exhibition of the artist Elena Osipova, which opened in the office of the Yabloko party in St. Petersburg on January 31, was closed on Wednesday, having managed to run for only a day. As the office of “Yabloka” confirmed to Sever.Realii, the police arrived due to a report of alleged mining and cordoned off the building. The police did not find explosives, but they removed them from the walls and seized Osipova’s pictures and posters.

According to Yablok member Olga Pokrovskaya, law enforcement officers found “signs of a crime” in the exhibits. Earlier, the organizers of the exhibition reported that they did not start exhibiting Osipova’s works, which could fall under the law on fakes about the Russian army, in order to protect the artist from possible prosecution.

Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg Borys Vyshnevskyi said that the party members will demand the initiation of a case about false mining.

77-year-old Elena Osypova has been taking to the streets of St. Petersburg for many years with posters of her own authorship. The first of them were devoted to the capture of hostages at the “Nord-Ost” performance in 2002 in Moscow. Osipova held single pickets against the bombings in Syria, against the transfer of St. Isaac’s Cathedral from the Ministry of Church Culture, in defense of political prisoners. She consistently opposes Russia’s war in Ukraine. The police repeatedly confiscated her paintings and posters.

• After the beginning of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new law on fakes and discrediting the Russian army. Anyone who speaks publicly about the war in Ukraine can be accused of them, if his statements differ from the official reports. Violators of the law face a fine from 700,000 to one and a half million rubles or imprisonment for up to three years; under aggravating circumstances – up to five years.