St. Petersburg State University expels student charged with ‘discrediting’ army for online post she made in high school

A Russian woman named Darya Kozyreva has been expelled from St. Petersburg State University after she was charged with “discrediting” the Russian army, the human rights media project OVD-Info reported on Thursday.

According to Kozyreva, the university cited a line in its charter that prohibits students from violating Russian law.

The charges were filed in December 2023 over a social media post from March 2022 in which Kozyreva criticized Russian censorship laws and said the war had an “imperialist nature.” Kozyreva was still a 10th grader, not a university student, when she made the post.

On December 19, 2022, Kozyreva was arrested for writing an anti-war message on an art installation on St. Petersburg’s Palace Square. She given a misdemeanor charge for “discrediting” the army and a felony charge for intentionally damaging property.