Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, more than a thousand cases have been opened in Crimea against pro-Ukrainian residents of the peninsula. These are cases under various articles of the Russian codes. According to the Crimean Human Rights Group, most of the cases fall within the provision on ‘discrimination of the Russian army’. See more in the story ‘Krym.Realii’.
Russian security forces broke into the house of Yevpatorians Olena and Oleksandr Avdeevs through the window. The reason was their Ukrainian slogans and songs, which were recorded by their neighbours and passed on to ‘the right people’. The video shows that the woman was hit.
They climbed over the fence to Larysa Mokhnakova’s place in Soniachna Dolyna. The reason – and we quote – ‘in the banned Facebook network, she was waiting for Ukraine, supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine’.
Bohdan Shchetynin in Sevastopol had a machine gun put to his face.
Yuriy Derbenev, an elderly diabetic from Feodosia, who, according to Russian law enforcement, ‘opposed the special military operation’ (as the Russian authorities call the full-scale war against Ukraine) and ‘insulted the country’ on Odnoklassniki, was very much frightened by the special forces storming in.
Oleh Hubskyi from Kerch was detained with particular cruelty. The Russian authorities accused him of discrediting the army, insulting the President of the Russian Federation and propaganda of LGBT community. During the arrest, they lifted his head by his hair to make him identify himself.
The detention of Dliaver Salimov in Staryi Krym. In August 2023, the man demanded that the Crimean resident take off his Z cap. The law enforcers wanted Salimov to record an apology, but he refused. A case was opened against him under the article on death threats and he was sentenced to a year in a penal colony.
These are examples of how Crimeans are arrested, if they are considered by the Russian authorities to have violated an article of the administrative code on discrediting the Russian army.
The number of such detentions is growing. However, the number of those who disagree with the war and occupation is not decreasing, said Tamila Tasheva, the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the ARC, at the Third Parliamentary Summit of the Crimea Platform.
‘Despite the repression and intimidation, Crimeans remain strong. They continue to resist the occupation. Politically motivated cases, cases for discrediting the Russian army, absurd persecutions for Ukrainian symbols are happening every day. More than a thousand cases against those who stand in solidarity with Ukraine in Crimea have been a reality since 2022. Crimea, like other territories temporarily occupied by Russia, wants to be liberated from Russian occupation,’ said Tamila Tasheva, the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
As early as March 2022, Russian legislation introduced articles on criminal and administrative liability for discrediting the army. At first, people were arrested in Crimea for holding ‘No to War!’ posters.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine, pro-Ukrainian Crimeans have been persecuted more aggressively. They can be accused for statements on social media, for conversations at work, for songs, for wearing yellow and blue colours, for making assessments about Vladimir Putin. It even reached the point of an emoji on TikTok – a 10-year-old girl from the city of Saki was persecuted for her video. They said she was discrediting the army and defaming the flag.
The Russian media in Crimea wrote that because of her age, the girl could not be prosecuted under the article, so an administrative report was drawn up against her mother for allegedly failing to fulfil parental responsibilities for the upbringing of minors.
A Crimean woman speaks anonymously about the atmosphere on the peninsula after the start of the full-scale invasion. Ukraine, 2024
This young Crimean woman had to come to the peninsula from mainland Ukraine because of her mother’s illness just before the full-scale invasion began. For security reasons, we are not revealing her name or face. She saw how dangerous the atmosphere on the peninsula had become for pro-Ukrainian residents.
‘I just didn’t want to come out. And, of course, it all became absurd: when I saw the news about people being arrested for their yellow and blue manicure. I realised that they were also in some kind of paranoid state… At some point in the city, I saw a sign saying ‘Putin is a murderer’. It was the first time I saw it on a wall. And while I was travelling in one direction, to my destination, I saw this inscription, and when I returned a few hours later, it had already been covered with paint. That is, everyone took care of it very quickly,’ the girl says.
The Crimean woman says that Russian supporters quickly became more aggressive and cites a discussion with a relative as an example.
‘They immediately began to live under wartime laws, introduced censorship, tightened criminal legislation, i.e. all these treason laws. And you explain to this relative and say that they don’t have the right to look at phones, they don’t have the right to look at personal belongings. And he just lit up like a match at that moment and started saying that we, and we all have the right, you see who is coming here, you see what tattoos people have, you see that they are all there with swastikas. Of course, he started to attack me. I’m still surprised that he hasn’t turned me in since then. Although there were many opportunities to do so,’ the girl recalls.
In two years, an entire network for informers has been created in Crimea. One of its organisers is Oleksandr Talipov, a resident of Feodosia and former Ukrainian border guard. He has several Telegram channels, including the propaganda Telegram channel Crimean SMERSH, where he disseminates personal data of Crimeans and threatens them. Many of the data published by Talipov become the basis for opening criminal cases against Crimeans. Here is what Talipov said a year ago:
‘More than 500 people have already been brought to administrative responsibility and dozens of criminal cases have been initiated, and, of course, we are waiting for high-profile cases of treason, because our “waiting people” will soon face such charges’, Talipov said on the air of Radio Krym, which promotes Russian propaganda.
Talipov and his supporters post data on Crimean residents with anti-war or pro-Ukrainian attitudes on the Crimean SMERSH Telegram channel and pass it on to Russian special forces.
‘Talipov’s channel, which is actually one of the main ones that provides information to the Federal Security Service. This is a pro-Russian blogger, and he is the one who is ‘leaking’ all this information to the FSS. Plus, I’m pretty sure that he and his associates are definitely the so-called ‘applicants’ – that is, those who write reports. Because the FSS and Centre ‘E’ have to fabricate cases based on something. And that’s why, in fact, this Talipov and his entire group are definitely the people who help to fabricate such cases against our people,’ says Olha Skrypnyk, the head of the Crimean Human Rights Group.
A Crimean woman who was on the peninsula at the time of the start of the full-scale invasion says that although she did not openly express her pro-Ukrainian position, the feeling that people might come after her still haunted her. People feel this especially strongly, she says, in villages and small towns where everyone knows everything about each other.
‘You know all the neighbours, from the first to the last, and also the policeman on duty, and so on. I mean, it’s that kind of atmosphere. And, of course, I understood that we knew each other personally, he knew that I lived in Kyiv, and what it was like. I was a bit paranoid at the time. I could really look out the window, see a black van with tinted windows and get tense. Or when the doorbell rang, I would look through the peephole and not know who it was, and if it was a man, I would immediately tense up. I mean, I was lucky, no one ever got to me,’ she shares her memories.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Crimean Human Rights Group has recorded 830 administrative cases under the article on discrediting the Russian army. Here is the video about how a pensioner from Staryi Krym was fined 35,000 roubles and sentenced to administrative detention for wearing a trident and commenting about the Russian army on Odnoklassniki.
In 2023, according to the Crimean Human Rights Group, 357 cases were brought to courts on charges of ‘discrediting’ the Russian army, and this year, in just six months, two hundred such cases have been brought to courts. Human rights activists note that there may be more such cases, as not all information about courts in Crimea is available. And more and more grounds for such cases are being invented. Here is an apartment of a man accused of supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine and… painting his place in yellow and blue colours.
‘Crimean SMERSH’ published a video of an apartment of a resident of Pervomaiskoye village with yellow and blue curtains and walls.
‘It’s not only if you publish direct appeals against the war, against the so-called ‘illegal armed groups’ and so on. It can be condolences, for example, to the Ukrainian military. That is, if there is a post about people writing how sorry they are that our soldiers are dying defending Ukraine, this is also discrediting, in their understanding. It’s any yellow and blue colours at all. It’s not just, as it used to be, the flag of Ukraine, for example, a photo with a flag or something else. Now it’s just any yellow and blue colours that can be interpreted by the so-called judges as discrediting,’ said Olha Skrypnyk, head of the Crimean Human Rights Group.
They visit Crimeans in universities right during classes, in hospitals during patients’ visits. And they immediately start filming. The materials are often passed on by neighbours and friends – they shoot video, record it on a tape recorder. If a person tries to defend his or her rights, he or she can be charged under other provisions of the Criminal Code, with additional fines or administrative arrest.
‘There are cases when, when a person is detained for the above-mentioned administrative offences, they are also accused of disobeying a lawful demand of a police officer. For this, a person may face a fine of 2 to 4 thousand roubles, or administrative arrest for up to 15 days. But disobedience to a lawful demand of a police officer can be anything. Even, relatively speaking, an unwillingness to give your phone for inspection within a few seconds. There are many actions that the so-called law enforcement officers can classify in this way, and a person can end up behind bars for several days,’ said Yevhen Yaroshenko, an analyst at the NGO CrimeaSOS.
Negative statements about the Rosgvardia or private military companies also fall under the category of ‘discrediting’. The same provision also applies to negative statements about Vladimir Putin.
‘Although, basically, even formally, Putin and the army are different things. But, for example, a negative statement against Putin, against the so-called local authorities, against representatives of the armed forces, of course, but also other authorities – this is also considered to be discrediting the Russian army. Any publications about crimes committed by the Russian army, especially crimes against civilians, are treated in the same way. So, basically, almost everything,’ Olha Skrypnyk, the head of the Crimean Human Rights Group, says.
There are cases of persecution for photos supporting the Ukrainian national team, for example, a football team, or photos with Ukrainian boxers. Or for pictures that do not bear the symbols of Ukraine at all and do not relate to the Russian army.
‘There were also very absurd cases when people were prosecuted for actions that formally had nothing to do with the Russian army. For example, there was a case when one person posted a photo of Budapest in 1956 during the revolution on a social network, where a tram had the inscription ‘Russians, go [obscene]’. This person was fined for this,’ Yevhen Yaroshenko, an analyst at the NGO CrimeaSOS, recalls the case.
Crimean Process NGO has analysed all available Crimean cases on discrediting the Russian army for the year from June 2023 to June 2014.
The lawyers concluded that in these cases Crimean judges ignored most of the requirements, even those of Russian law – in no case did courts establish the existence of all three components of the offence (publicity, targeting and signs of defamation). In 14 per cent of cases, courts failed to establish the presence of even one of the components of the offence.
Conclusions of the analytical study by Crimean Process NGO
The persecution may now also apply to the property of Crimeans – in February 2024, Vladimir Putin signed a law on the confiscation of property in cases of discrediting the Russian army.
For example, instead of fines, Tatiana Kufeld’s phones, TV, washing machine and even a slow cooker were taken away from her in Yalta. In total, Crimeans have already been fined 26.4 million roubles under the charge of ‘discrediting’ the Russian army, according to the Permanent Mission of the President of Ukraine in the ARC.
Videos of allegedly repentant detainees are being actively shared on Crimean social media. In some cases, people are given Russian flags in their hands and filmed against the backdrop of Putin’s portraits. The texts are similar to each other: the alleged conscious guilt, apologies, and the removal of materials.
Photo collage of several ‘apology’ videos posted on the Crimean SMERSH Telegram channel
But there are also other texts. For example, in Sevastopol, a man with a bottle in his hands says in the video: ‘I apologise for my bad behaviour. I thank comrade major for the fact that this bottle is in my hands and not elsewhere’.
In Sevastopol, after the detention, a video was recorded with the man saying, ‘I thank comrade major for having this bottle in my hands and not elsewhere’.
The Irade human rights initiative studied about a hundred such videos and concluded that one in four Crimeans ‘experienced additional humiliation’.
This includes the use of template phrases, recording in the premises of law enforcement agencies.
‘Human rights activists have collected evidence that some of the recordings were made in the premises of law enforcement agencies. They came to the conclusion that the practice of humiliation of people with pro-Ukrainian sentiments is used in Crimea on a massive scale, systematically and mainly by template methods (by reading out on video a legally verified text of apology that is not typical for simple speech). This is done to demotivate people who demonstrate their pro-Ukrainian sentiments and to prevent the growth of such sentiments by scaring the civilian population,’ Irade says.
The video of Nelly Karamyan from Yevpatoria was filmed against the backdrop of a police line. Screenshot from the Crimean SMERSH Telegram channel
The CrimeaSOS organisation also emphasises that all these recordings were made after the ‘processing’ of people by Russian law enforcement agencies.
‘In many cases, the detainees were forced to record propaganda videos, saying that they were apologising to Putin, to the Russian army, to the entire Russian society for their actions, that they allegedly promised not to do anything like that again, that they allegedly supported Putin, supported the so-called ‘special military operation’, and so on. It is difficult to assess the sincerity of such statements after what they have experienced after being treated by the Russian security forces,’ Yevhen Yaroshenko, an analyst at the NGO CrimeaSOS, said.
In Crimea, people are constantly persecuted for listening to Ukrainian songs on the streets, in cafes and at home, or for posting them on their social media pages. People can even be beaten because of the songs, and often get fired from their jobs. There is also a criminal charge for repeated discrediting.
‘As an example: two years ago, a teacher at a technical school played the song ‘Bayraktar’ in front of his students during a class. Then Russian law enforcers came to him, beat him severely and detained him for several days on one charge and fined him on another. Two months later, he wrote a post on social media condemning a full-scale war. And this post was interpreted as a repeated discrediting of the Russian army, and later the teacher was fined 100,000 roubles. That is, he was brought to criminal responsibility,’ Yaroshenko says about the case of Andrey Belozerov.
In March 2023, Russia adopted amendments to the law, according to which repeated ‘discrediting’ of the Russian military fighting against Ukraine can result in a criminal sentence of up to 15 years in prison.
Human rights activists also note that the FSS, in their opinion, compiles lists of those fined for discreditation for further criminal cases on other charges. For example, accusations of creating terrorist groups.
‘This happened, for example, with the case of Kyryl Barannyk and Viktor Podvalnyi. This is a group of men, for example, Barannyk was detained in one place, and there was also a group of men who were detained in Yalta. And suddenly, one of the defendants, a woman, also appeared there. This woman had previously been convicted under this section on discrediting the Russian army. And then she suddenly becomes a defendant in criminal cases. So, it seems to me that, if we are talking about a trend, the FSS is using this database of people who have already been involved in administrative proceedings in one way or another to form a certain base if they need to expand the scope of fabricating a criminal case somewhere, for example, to scare them that we have a terrible terrorist group here,’ Olha Skrypnyk, the head of the Crimean Human Rights Group, said.
According to Russian research, in 2023, Crimea was among the leaders among the regions of neighbouring Russia and the Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia in terms of the number of administrative protocols and criminal cases on the so-called ‘anti-war’ charges.
