Prosecution requests eight-year sentence for Sasha Skochilenko, St. Petersburg artist who replaced price tags with information about war in Ukraine

Mediazona reports that the state prosecution in the case against St. Petersburg artist Sasha Skochilenko, who replaced price tags in a supermarket with information about Russia’s war in Ukraine, has asked the court that Skochilenko be sentenced to eight years in a general regime prison colony for her anti-war protest.

The defense has not participated in the debate yet. At Skochilenko’s lawyers’ request, the court session has been postponed to November 13, writes Bumaga.

Skochilenko was arrested in April 2022 on charges of disseminating “knowingly false information” about the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine (point “d” of Part 2, Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) because she replaced price tags with anti-war information.

The charge against Skochilenko carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

As of early November, Skochilenko had spent more than a year and a half in pre-trial detention. She has been diagnosed with several diseases, Mediazona writes, but the pre-trial detention center again provided the court with certificates stating that she “can follow the procedure.” Reportedly, no one examined Skochilenko to draw up such a certificate.