The Russian military court sentenced the Ukrainian Chrystyna Ljubashenko to 12 years in prison, who played an anti-war speech and the Ukrainian anthem through the speakers on the window of a rented apartment in Moscow and also released balloons with a white-blue-white flag in the Russian capital, the Meduza server reported today. According to the Oboz.ua portal, the defense lawyer vainly asked the court to exonerate her client, who was said to have been driven to her act by blackmail.
Ljubašenko was accused of spreading false news about the Russian army, as is usual in the case of anti-war protests, and also of participating in a terrorist organization. The white-blue-white flag is considered in Russia to be the symbol of the Legion of Freedom of Russia, in which Russian emigrants are fighting alongside Ukrainian armiesand which the Russian Supreme Court designated as a terrorist organization.
According to the portal, the Ukrainian lawyer stated that her client lived in Kyiv with her mother, who had cancer, her grandfather, who suffered from dementia, and her two daughters. After the invasion of the Russian troops in Ukraine, she went to Switzerland, where she received asylum, but the money was barely enough for her to live on. In Switzerland, she met a neighbor who introduced himself to her as a refugee from Ukraine, Vitaly Yurchenko, and offered her a monetary reward for an anti-war event with balloons in Moscow.
He also rented her an apartment in the Russian capital and bought her a one-way ticket. When she reached Moscow, he demanded to attach a flag to the balloons, which she had to sew herself, and to play an anti-war speech and anthem from the loudspeakers. Lyubashenko didn’t want to do it, but Yurchenko forced her to do it with threats that otherwise he would have her daughters taken away from her and they would end up in a children’s home.
According to the Mediazona server, the case took only two days. The prosecution asked for 15 years in a penal colony. Ljubašenko denied guilt in court. However, she previously signed pre-prepared protocols with a confession to the police, which she did not even read properly. However, according to the Oboz.ua server, they served as the only evidence against the Ukrainian in court.
