A Russian woman has been asked to pay for praising Ukraine’s President Zelensky. A Russian court sentenced her to a fine.
She praised Volodymyr Zelenskyj – and now has to pay for it: A Moscow court sentenced the Russian pensioner Olga Slegina to a fine of 40,000 rubles (around 450 euros) for her positive statements about the Ukrainian president. The elderly lady spoke loudly about the Ukrainian leader at a dinner last December at a health center in Nalchik, southern Russia. The 70-year-old told a Ukrainian woman and a canteen worker that Zelenskyy was a “handsome young man with a good sense of humor,” according to the Memorial Human Rights Center.
The statement came after the waitress had previously described the 45-year-old as ugly and a freak. Slegina added to the compliment that “everybody used to laugh at his jokes”. Three other visitors heard the conversation and reported it to authorities. According to the Memorial Human Rights Center, the officer who arrested the pensioner told her: “You have no right to praise him because he is our enemy.”
Brought to the statement with a trick
The Memorial Human Rights Center also said the woman was tricked into signing a statement by the authorities. The accusation: You shouted “Honor of Ukraine”. However, she denies that.
A court in Moscow has now sentenced Olga Slegina to “discrediting the Russian armed forces” for complimenting the Ukrainian head of government. For such a violation in Russia you can go to prison for up to 15 years. The hearing is said to have lasted only about five minutes.
