While Russian soldiers are killing people in mainland Ukraine, Russian law-enforcers are suppressing the freedom of speech in the occupied peninsula. Olena Hukova, 68, a teacher and civic activist from Yalta, Crimea, was summoned to a Russia-controlled court in the peninsula for open anti-war views. Even in the courtroom on the defendant’s bench, she did not betray her beliefs. Her deed matters in the light of the fact that since Russia’s occupation in 2014, Crimeans have lived in an informational vacuum, consumed Kremlin-made propaganda, and been intimidated. And those who dared to speak up have ended up in prison, have been abducted, tortured, and threatened.
“I have always been and will be against the war of aggression. War is the mass killings of innocent people… [T]his is, of course, not a special operation, it is a complex of special operations. The war is ongoing in the entire territory of Ukraine, except for the West. However, its gets bombings, too. Offensive from Belarus may be called a central operation - because there is an attack on Kyiv, attack from the east may be referred to as the eastern campaign, and attack from the south may be named southern campaign. And these campaigns are made of special operations. There is Kyiv operation, Kharkiv operation, Mariupol operation… And how does Putin not understand this? To call all of this a military operation… And now, I am being prosecuted for this. This is a ‘C’ student, got at school Cs to Ds, he was admitted to a university on a sportsmen quota. His Minister of Defense did not serve in the army at all. And they tell us such nonsense… But this does not even have a principal meaning. People are dying… I showed you the theater of war. I showed that there are a number of military operations. And you know it yourself. Today, they are already bombing Kryvyi Rih, going to Mykholaiv, are bombing it, are bombing Kharkiv, they have bombed the whole Mariupol… All these special operations have converted into a stage of a protracted war… My value judgement: most genuine fascist regime has reigned in Russia.”
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