“The Pușkinski district court of Saint Petersburg has sentenced local resident Anna Aleksandrova to five years and two months in prison, declaring her guilty of spreading “false information” about the military (letter “d”, part 2, article 207.3 of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation). She will serve her sentence in a general regime colony. After her release, she will be prohibited from publishing materials on the internet for three years.
Aleksandrova worked as a hairstylist and was one of the initiators of a campaign to protect the Starogatcinskii forest in the Leningrad region, where authorities intended to cut down trees and build structures. According to the investigation, after the start of the war in Ukraine, she allegedly posted “obviously false information” about the Russian army on the social network “VKontakte”. Initially, Aleksandrova was accused of eight posts written under pseudonyms, but linguistic expertise determined that only one of them contained the so-called “false information”. Aleksandrova denies being the author and claims that she was denounced by her neighbor Irina Sergeeva due to a conflict over land.
The two women had campaigned together to protect the Starogatcinskii forest, but in 2022, Sergeeva attempted to rent a plot of land of 4.5 hectares near the forest without a bidding process, which made Aleksandrova suspicious that she intended to turn it into private property for sale as building lots. This version was supported by other witnesses as well. Aleksandrova managed to block the rental process, and in response, Sergeeva filed a complaint with the police, accusing her of distributing anti-war messages on WhatsApp and social networks.
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