Russian anti-war activist and cartoonist Aleksandra “Sasha” Skochilenko is now free from a seven-year prison sentence as part of the historic prisoner swap that released Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovitz last week.
Russian authorities arrested Skochilenko in April 2022 after she replaced five price tags at a grocery store with small leaflets opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She was charged with disseminating “false information” about the country’s military activities.
At her sentencing last November, Skochilenko asked the court, “How weak is our prosecutor’s faith in our state and society if he believes that our statehood and public safety can be destroyed by five small pieces of paper?”
The grim sentence drew criticism from human rights groups who called the charge — and the law penalizing the spread of information about the Russian military — a sham.
“Her persecution has become synonymous with the absurdly cruel oppression faced by Russians openly opposing their country’s criminal war,” Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia director, said at the time.
One of the protest price tags used in Skochilenko’s project read: “Russian army bombed an art school in Mariupol. There were 400 people hiding from the fire inside.”
An Associated Press investigation revealed that the bombing resulted in as many as 600 deaths at Mariupol Drama Theatre, which was functioning as a bomb shelter.
“For 20 years Putin lies to us from TV screens. As a result we’re eager to justify war and meaningless deaths,” read another price tag.
Amnesty International called for Russia’s Prosecutor General Krasnov Igor Viktorovich to drop all charges against Skochilenko as a “prisoner of conscience” and warned that the artist’s life was in danger in prison due to her celiac disease and heart condition.
Before becoming an internationally recognized political prisoner, Skochilenko drew cartoons including those featured in her 2014 work A Book About Depression, translated into English and Spanish and available in an online PDF. In the comic, Skochilenko recounts her own experience with depression and how she has found relief.
In a photo posted to Skochilenko’s verified Facebook account on August 2, just one day after her release, she poses kissing her girlfriend with the caption “freedom.”