Family feud

Her cousin, Oleg Gorin, says that he fears Stepanova, who left Russia in 2022 to avoid prosecution for her outspoken criticism of the war, could sell the apartment and donate the profits to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

‘A big man in the village’

Anna Stepanova is a high-profile environmental activist from Russia’s Arkhangelsk region. Before the war, she was actively involved in the movement to prevent a new landfill site being built in the Arkhangelsk region village of Shies, and since 2022 she has been a vocal critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After being fined multiple times for “discrediting the Russian army”, Stepanova left Russia for Georgia with her husband and two children, though she still owns a two-bedroom apartment in the small village of Savinsky, a three-hour drive from Arkhangelsk.

“I was informed on 4 January that my cousin Oleg came to the apartment, which I co-own with my children, with an officer from the Federal Security Service (FSB). As far as I can work it out, they called my mother. I’m not in touch with my family, so I don’t know the details,” Stepanova told Veter. “Oleg went on TikTok and said that he had made a statement to the FSB.” Veter has been unable to find the video, however.

Stepanova bought the apartment in Savinsky, a village of about 5,000 people, some years ago. When she left, the apartment was worth about 1 million rubles (€10,900). “I worked two jobs to buy the apartment, and took out a mortgage, which I paid off long ago. The apartment is owned outright by me and my two children,” says Stepanova. 

Almost everyone in Savinsky supports the war in Ukraine, she says, including her mother, aunt and cousin, 35-year-old Oleg Gorin. Gorin has fought in Ukraine himself, and recently returned home while on leave. “He’s openly been killing Ukrainians since the beginning of the war,” Stepanova says, adding that he denounced her to the police for her political beliefs rather than due to his designs on her apartment.

“He thinks I’m a traitor to my country, and that he’s a hero who does everything right. I don’t think he needs the apartment because he has his grandmother’s place. But now he can walk around the village with his head held high. He didn’t have a job before that and wasn’t in the regular army. They didn’t take him because he’d slit his wrists and didn’t pass the medical examination. But now Oleg is a big man in the village. People recognise him. The great and the good shake hands with him and say: ‘Thank you, Oleg, for making a statement about a traitor,’” Stepanova says. She doesn’t know exactly what his statement said.

“I have no idea how they can take my apartment away from me. But I have no doubt that it’s illegal. As you know, Russia’s punitive machinery works around the law,” Stepanova says. 

“I’m not sad about it at all. When I left Russia, I understood that I no longer owned anything there. All my accounts have been frozen. I haven’t paid any fines, which now amount to about 1 million rubles (€10,900). I understood that sooner or later my apartment would be taken from me. I actually thought it would happen much earlier. I think exchanging freedom for a few square metres is actually very cool. But of course I didn’t expect my cousin to start the proceedings,” Stepanova says.

Money for the AFU

When contacted by Veter, Gorin confirmed he had made a statement to the police accusing his cousin of slander. “Anna Stepanova says in all her videos that I am in an assault unit, without knowing what I do for a living. I originally gave a statement to the police because she lies a lot, first and foremost about her family,” Gorin said. 

“I didn’t contact the FSB. I contacted the police so that she’d lose her apartment rather than be able to sell it and send the money to the AFU or to its backers to finance propaganda and lies.” 

According to Gorin, he specified in his statement that Stepanova owned property, which he said could be legally seized. When Stepanova learned what her cousin had done, she confirmed that if she sold her apartment, she would indeed donate the money to the AFU. 

There is indeed a legal way to seize the property of a Russian citizen. On 21 April, Vladimir Putin signed a law that allows property to be confiscated from individuals found guilty of discrediting the army; calling for sanctions to be imposed on Russia; helping to enforce decisions by international organisations of which Russia is not a part; and the public dissemination of false information about the Russian military.

However, when confiscating real estate, there must be proof that the property was used to undermine security and constitutional order in the country, or that the property was acquired using funds acquired via criminal activity. 

Stepanova says she doesn’t know whether criminal cases have been opened against her in Russia. She only recently learned that she now faces fresh charges for violating the law on “foreign agents” by failing to publicise her status on social media. 

Exit strategy

The peaceful village of Savinsky underwent a transformation in February 2022, Stepanova recalls, as local residents immediately came out in favour of the war. Many men enlisted to fight, some for the cause, others for financial gain, Stepanova says. Real estate prices in the village went up too.

“So they go and fight, and then they buy a home. It’s not just my cousin fighting. My first husband is killing Ukrainians too. He was mobilised straight away. And now, as far as I know, he’s been demobilised with an injury and is building a house in the Moscow suburbs.” 

Stepanova’s Ukrainian father is buried in Ukraine’s Cherkasy region, a fact that only made the war more of a personal tragedy for her. “I’m Ukrainian on my father’s side, while my mother fully supports Putin. She even has a Putin clock. She’s not talking to me. She sometimes calls the children, but not often. She fully subscribes to the Kremlin playbook and Putin is her icon. The complete propaganda narrative,” she says.

When the war in Ukraine began, Stepanova was moderating several online environmental groups. She posted a video to anti-war groups, but even there she found little support. 

“Over 10 people gave statements to the police back then. I couldn’t fucking believe it because I really thought they were all against the war. Then I went outside and saw the letter Z and Russian flags everywhere,” Stepanova recalls. 

In her view, most of the people who protested against the landfill in Shies nevertheless supported the war in Ukraine, while she actively wrote anti-war posts on social media. She faced three misdemeanour charges for discrediting the army in 2022 alone. 

“The German channel Ostwest got in touch and wanted to make a film about my environmental activities in Russia. I agreed. That was when they bugged me. The harassment began, and the journalists had to get me out of the country. It’s all caught on camera, me going to see a lawyer and him saying: ‘You should have left yesterday.’ I never went back home,” she says. 

She and her family spent six months in Georgia, where she opened a shelter for refugees with animals. “It was free accommodation for people with pets, because it’s very difficult to find a place to stay with pets in a foreign country. There were Ukrainians and Belarusians living there, but then mobilisation began and Russians started coming. We’re still in touch. Amazing people,” she recalls.

After six months in Georgia, Stepanova was granted a humanitarian visa by the German authorities and moved there with her family, where she currently blogs about the crimes of the Kremlin regime. “I’m a volunteer, I get involved in all the activities, I’m always sending money to the AFU. I’m waiting for Ukraine to defend its territory and break that thug’s teeth and arms in the process, and for Russia to stop wanting to attack any other countries.”