“According to Radio Liberty’s Sever.Realia project, at least 44 residents of Russia and occupied Crimea have been victims of persecution for performing or listening to Ukrainian songs since the beginning of the war in February 2022”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
Regarding the persecuted, protocols were drawn up for articles about “discrediting” the army, displaying extremist paraphernalia, or petty hooliganism.
The reasons for the persecution were the performance or reproduction of the songs “Chervona Kalyna”, “Stefania” by the Eurovision winners Kalush Orchestra or “Gulyanochka” by Verka Serdyuchka.
In 2023, the first criminal case was initiated about “fakes” that mentioned Ukrainian songs. This is the case of Yevhen Bestuzhev, a former political scientist from St. Petersburg, who was sentenced to five years and three months of probation for anti-war posts and videos with songs in Ukrainian.
Another criminal case was also initiated against Oleksandr Nesterenko, a teacher of Bauman Moscow State Technical University. He was accused of inciting hatred with the threat of violence over two videos and three audio recordings he posted on the Russian social network VKontakte. Among them were “We are growing” by the band “Vopli Vidoplyasova” and “Let’s light the morning – Ukraine will win” performed by Gordon Black.
In total, since the beginning of the war, at least 12 people have been arrested, 17 have been fined in administrative cases related to Ukrainian songs, in other cases the punishment is either unknown or the protocols have been cancelled.