In Belgorod, the arrest of Nadine from the volunteer organization "Army of Beauties", who helped Ukrainian refugees, was extended

The Sverdlovsk District Court of Belgorod extended the detention period of Nadezhda Rossinskaya, known as Nadine Geisler from the volunteer organization "Army of Beauties", until July 31. This was reported by a Mediazona correspondent from the courtroom.

Nadine was brought to court from the punishment cell, where the girl, according to her, was “sent for sleeping” - she lay down on the bed at the wrong time. The accused looked tired and apologized for coming today without makeup, adding that “there is no makeup in the punishment cell.” After Geisler’s mother heard that she was in the punishment cell, she began to cry and said that “all her tears will come back to those who are guilty of this.”

The prosecution requested an extension of Nadine's arrest to complete the examination of her phone, conduct a phonographic and linguistic forensic examination, and question witnesses. They did not have time to examine the phone because, as the prosecutor explained, "there is a huge terabyte of information on it, including deleted information."

Geisler spoke out against the extension of her detention in the pretrial detention center and asked to transfer her to house arrest or release her on bail. The volunteer denies that she collected money for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. She added that her half-sister testified against her about helping the Ukrainian military, but her words "should arouse suspicion in everyone" because she "has several psychiatric diagnoses, and she had auditory hallucinations." At the last hearing on the extension of the preventive measure, it became known that Nadine's stepmother testified against her.

The lawyer reported that the girl is being held in a cell where there is "absolutely no fresh air", and in addition, she is not taken out for walks due to the shelling of Belgorod. Being held in a pretrial detention center is undermining her health, he emphasized.

Geisler was detained in February 2024 when she arrived in Russia from Georgia. She was accused of "public calls for activities directed against state security" (clause "b" of part 2 of article 280.4 of the Criminal Code). According to the investigation, she called for donations to the Azov Battalion. Nadine herself denied that the Instagram account where this post was posted belonged to her.

Geisler said that before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she worked as a photographer and model, and after February 24, she organized the "Beauty Army." The movement's social media claimed that activists were collecting humanitarian aid, transporting it to Ukraine, and evacuating Ukrainians from the combat zone.

Volunteers from other projects who spoke to Mediazona called it suspicious that the Russian military allowed the Army of Beauties to enter the occupied territories. In the summer of 2022, the Kharkiv publication Severnye Novosti accused Nadine of having ties to the secret services, without providing direct evidence. At the same time, Ukrainian Anastasia Bortnik told Mediazona that she was detained by Russian security forces when she tried to get to an occupied border village and evacuate her mother-in-law; the girl linked this to the fact that she consulted with the Army of Beauties about the trip.

The Army of Beauties denied accusations of working with the secret services.

According to Nadine , she left Russia in May 2023 "after threats and the prospect of arrest" - shortly before that, she claimed, a girl who sent her a donation was detained at the airport. The Belgorod publication "Ashes" suggested that Geisler decided to return to help with the transportation of dogs from occupied Melitopol.