November 05, 2024

Prison Time for a Charitable Donation


Prison Time for a Charitable Donation
Rostov-on-Don. © Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia Commons

A bank employee from Rostov-on-Don has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for transferring money for a charitable donation to causes in Ukraine.

Elena Popova was arrested one year ago for treason and petty hooliganism, and was sentenced on October 30 for sending the oppositionist journalist Arkady Babchenko approximately R7,000 ($71) on February 27, 2022, just days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine

"She made a huge number of transfers to various charities to help women, children, animals. Donations in the hundreds of thousands. In this case, the state simply took advantage of her naivete, because certainly in the first days [of the war] many transferred to various bloggers, organizations. As a result, for seven thousand rubles, [she got] 12 years and a fine of 500,000 [rubles, about $5,000]," Popova's cousin told journalists. 

Popova is one of many citizens facing heavy punishments for speaking or acting out in any way against the war. 

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