University student Olesya Krivtsova has been missing a lot of classes.
That’s because 20-year-old Olesya is under house arrest. She has an electronic tag on her leg. Police can monitor her every move.
Her alleged crime? Olesya was arrested for anti-war posts on social media. One of them concerned last October’s explosion on the bridge linking Russia to annexed Crimea.
“I posted an Instagram story about the bridge,” Olesya tells the BBC, “reflecting on how Ukrainians were happy with what had happened.”
She had also shared a friend’s post about the war.
Then the drama began.
“I was talking on the phone to my mother,” Olesya recalls, “when I heard the front door opening. Lots of police came in. They took away my phone and shouted at me to lie on the floor.”
Olesya was charged with justifying terrorism and discrediting the Russian armed forces. She faces up to 10 years in prison.
“I never imagined anyone could get such a long prison sentence for posting something on the internet,” Olesya says. “I’d seen reports of crazy verdicts in Russia, but I hadn’t paid much attention and continued to speak out.”
A student of the Northern Federal University in Arkhangelsk, Olesya has now been added to Russia’s official list of terrorists and extremists.
“When I realised I’d been put on the same list as school shooters and the Islamic State group I thought it was crazy,” recalls Olesya.
Under the rules of her house arrest she’s banned from talking on the phone and going online.
Olesya has a striking image tattooed on her right leg – Russian President Vladimir Putin depicted as a spider, with an Orwellian inscription: “Big Brother is watching you.”
It appears that in Olesya’s case, it wasn’t Big Brother watching her, but her fellow students.
