‘When you imprison pacifists, you delay peace’ Key excerpts from St. Petersburg artist Sasha Skochilenko’s final statement in court

St. Petersburg’s Vasileostrovsky District Court has convicted St. Petersburg artist Sasha Skochilenko of spreading “disinformation” about the Russian military’s actions in Ukraine for a protest in which she replaced supermarket price tags with anti-war messages back in April 2022. The judge sentenced the 33-year-old to seven years in prison. In English, Meduza shares excerpts from Skochilenko’s final statement in court before she was sentenced.

My case is so strange and ridiculous that it’s fitting that it was launched exactly on April 1. My case is so strange and ridiculous that sometimes I think that when I enter the courtroom for the next hearing, confetti will suddenly start falling from the ceiling and everyone will get up and shout, “Fooled you!” My case is so strange and ridiculous that employees at SIZO-5, [the prison where I’ve been awaiting trial], get wide-eyed and exclaim, “Are they really jailing people for that now?” My case is so outlandish that I’ve even met supporters of the special military operation who don’t believe I deserve a prison sentence for what I did.

My case is so absurd that my investigator resigned without waiting for it to come to a close. In a private conversation with my lawyer, he said, “I didn’t join the Investigative Committee to work on cases like the one against Sasha Skochilenko.”

***

Thanks to my prosecutors and investigators, the information I spread [in the supermarket] has reached thousands of people in Russia and around the world. If I hadn’t been arrested, that information would have only reached an old woman, a cashier, and the security guard at the Perekrestok grocery store.

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The state prosecutor has said multiple times that my actions were extremely dangerous for our country and society. Does our prosecutor really have such little faith in our country and our society that he believes our sovereignty and our public safety can be undermined by five little slips of paper?

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If a prison sentence is intended to send a message to the people, then what is it you’re telling people, our citizens, by convicting me? That they should give up? That they should be hypocrites? That they should confess to things they didn’t do? That they shouldn’t care about our soldiers? That they shouldn’t wish for a peaceful sky overhead?

***

I am a pacifist. Pacifists have always existed. We’re a special kind of people who consider life to be the highest value there is. We believe that any conflict can be resolved peacefully. I can’t even kill a spider; I shudder to think about people killing other people. Combat is initiated by warriors, but peace is achieved thanks to pacifists. And when you imprison pacifists, you delay the long-awaited day of peace.

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Call it what you want — You can tell me I’ve been misled, made a mistake, or been brainwashed. In any case, I stand by my opinion and my truth. And I don’t believe any particular truth should be enforced by law.

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Why go to war, if all we have in this world full of poverty, disaster, and hardship is one another? Can all the wealth and power in the universe buy your loved one out of the captivity of death? No — not money, nor power, nor a career, nor an apartment, nor a car can do that.

***

I may be behind bars, but I’m freer than you. I can make my own decisions; I can say whatever I believe; I can quit my job if it’s making me do something I don’t want to do. I have no enemies; I’m not afraid of finding myself with no money or even without a roof over my head.