The Southern District Military Court in the city of Rostov-on-Don has sentenced a resident of Crimea, street artist Bogdan Ziza, who had poured blue and yellow paint on the city hall of the city of Yevpatoriya, Ukrainian media outlet Graty reports.
The prosecutor previously requested 18 years in a penal colony for Ziza. During his final statement, the artist declared a hunger strike. He said he would no longer eat starting from 10 June and also spoke out against force-feeding.
Photo: social media
He was charged with preparations to carry out a terrorist attack, vandalism, and justification of terrorism.
Ziza was detained in Yevpatoriya on 16 May 2022. In the early hours of 16 May, the artist doused the door of the administration building with yellow and blue paint and then threw a Molotov cocktail into it, however, the Molotov cocktail went out. Ziza referred to his actions as an anti-war protest and filmed everything he was doing.
The Yevpatoriya city hall after Ziza’s protest. Photo: Telegram channel Krymsky Veter
The same day, TV channel Crimea 24 posted a video with Ziza’s apology. In the video, he pleads guilty and says that he damaged the door due to his “disagreement with the special military operation being conducted by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine”.
Later, Ziza said that there were five different videos with him apologising: when law enforcement officers did not like the filmed footage, they would hit him, the artist alleged. In summer 2022, Ziza was added to the list of terrorists and extremists compiled by Russia’s Justice Ministry.
