A police report has been drawn up against Olga Slegina, a 69-year-old pensioner, for “discrediting” the Russian army because of a conversation she had in a health resort on 24 December, the woman herself tells Russian independent human right project OVD-Info.
According to Slegina, during the conversation she said that “Ukrainians are doing a good job — defending their country”. She also referred to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as an “intelligent and beautiful person”. Afterwards, two waitresses and a retired employee of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service denounced the woman to the police, the human rights project says.
The police report states that Slegina said that “Zelensky will capture Russia soon and everyone will have a bad time”. The woman denies that she said that. She does not see well without her glasses, so she found out what is written in the report only from the policemen’s words.
On 27 December, law enforcement agents arrived at the health resort to take Slegina to a police department. There, she was urged to show the contents of her phone, threatened with 15 days of arrest, and asked whether she has relatives in Ukraine and where she is from. After that, the woman was taken to the Nalchik City Court, however, the judge was not at the court, so Slegina was let go.
Two days later, Slegina received a phone call from a man who introduced himself as an employee of the court. The man said that a court hearing would take place the next day. By the evening of 29 December, Slegina’s blood pressure had risen significantly. On 30 December, two police officers arrived to take Slegina up from the health resort to the court building. She refused to go to the hearing due to not feeling well; the law enforcement agents left.
According to Mediazona, at least 4.033 administrative cases on “discrediting” the Russian army have been initiated against Russian citizens since the start of the war in Ukraine.
