A message on social media from a 19-year-old can in today’s Russia lead to you ending up on a terrorist list, and that can get you 10 years in prison. This is what happened to Olesia Krivtsova. Now she is 21 years old, safely placed in Norway. She tells news that she has matured quickly because of her dramatic story, which has brought her to Kirkenes, where she works as a journalist in the online newspaper BarentsObserver. Here Olesia Krivtsova is in place in the editorial premises of BarentsObserver. – I knew I could be caught The dramatic story starts with Russia’s brutal and illegal full-scale attack on Ukraine, 24 March 2022. Olesia is a student at the University in her hometown of Arkhangelsk. Together with other friends, the 19-year-old reacts to the war. She wants to protest. May 9, which is the day Russia celebrates its victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. She and her friends decide they can start what they think is a small, innocent protest. – I regretted what we did immediately afterwards, but today, when I sit here in Norway, I can’t say that I regret it, says Olesia to news. She got so angry that Russia celebrated peace, while dropping bombs on Ukraine. On 9 May 2022, she and some friends are driving around in Arkhangelsk. They have leaflets with them in the car, which they hang up. The leaflets say that veterans from the Second World War also live in Ukraine, where they are dying from Russian bombing right now. Then they went home. But the next day Russian authorities came and knocked on Olesia’s home. They had written down the number plate of the car they had driven around in. Now the authorities were there, at the door, demanding that she say sorry. – I knew I could be caught, but I didn’t think they would manage it, that it would be difficult to find me, says Olesia to news. According to Olesia, it was not the secret police FSB who came to her door. It was people from what in Russia is called Center E, it is a state body that is supposed to fight extremism. Olesia, together with her mother in Arkhangelsk. Threatened with a sledgehammer According to Olesia, they forced her to apologize on camera to the Russian military forces, and she says that she received a fine. As she understood it, this was a warning, and if she did something similar again, she risked a harsh sentence in prison. Then time passes, May turns into December 26 of the same year, 2022. She has only posted what she thought were fairly innocent things on Instagram. But it turns out she went too far. At seven in the morning there is a knock on the door, the mother has just left for work. The FSB, the Russian security police, bursts in the door and shouts for her to lie down, Olesia says. She says she is lying on the floor face down. When she looks up, she sees a man holding a sledgehammer, threatening her. They just tried to scare me, she says today. Down at the police station they say that she is now being investigated for inciting terrorism. It turns out that fellow students of hers have kept quiet about her, and there is one post in particular that the police are reacting to, It was a post that dealt with Ukraine’s bombing of the bridge over to the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula, the Kerch Bridge, on 8 October 2022. According to Olesia, she wrote that she could understand why Ukrainians were happy about the bombing of the bridge. The court gave Olesia house arrest, with an electronic anklet. They also took her computer and mobile phone. She says she was afraid the police could come to arrest her at any moment. She awaited trial, interrupted only by court hearings once a month. Olesia about her plans for the future. Cutting off the anklet But with the help of friends and a network that helps activists and journalists out of Russia, she managed to flee to neighboring Lithuania. There she cut off the electronic anklet. Up in Kirkenes, general manager of BarentsObserver Atle Staalesen gets her story. He and editor Thomas Nilsen offer her a trainee position as a reporter in the BarentsObserver, after traveling to Vilnius to meet her. In August last year, she was in place in Norway, and in Kirkenes. Here is Olesia on the Russian border, at the Pasvikelva in Finnmark. Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver General manager of BarentsObserver Atle Staalesen brags about his new reporter, one of four Russian journalists that the small online newspaper has hired. – She is very tough and fearless. She has good contacts in Russian youth circles, and is an important voice for Russians who have left the country, says Staalesen. Managing director Atle Staalesen on the left, with editor Thomas Nilsen in BarentsObserver. Photo: Tormod Strand Olesia has written about violence against women in Russia, she has written about how the authorities in Arkhangelsk control the protest movement against the war, and about political prisoners in today’s Russia. Now she is also receiving international attention. Just before Christmas, she was a guest on the New York Times podcast, The Daily. Staalesen says they are concerned about her safety, and the police in Kirkenes are aware of her case and are on alert should anything happen, says Staalesen. She has received a three-year work permit as a journalist from UDI. Here she cuts off the anklet. – Voices that threaten her Putin Inna Sangadzhieva was born in Russia, and is head of department for Europe and Central Asia in the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. She is proud of Olesia, and says she is an important voice. – The fact that she got a job as a journalist in Norway is impressive, and it sends a very important signal into Russia, that those fleeing from Putin are looked after and given a voice in the West, says Sangadzhieva. – Voices like hers threaten Putin, she says to news. – This shows that the regime does not succeed in stopping the mouths of journalists who travel in exile. It is an important signal, she says. Inna Sangadzhieva is head of department for Europe and Central Asia in the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. Photo: The Norwegian Helsinki Committee Inna Sangadzhieva says imprisonments and fines for protests against the war in Ukraine increased in Russia last year, so it is not surprising that there are fewer protests now. – In 2022 there were close to 400 cases against people who protested the war, last year in 2023 it had increased to close to 800 cases. On average, those convicted receive sentences of 77 months, while the average sentence in 2022 was 36 months. So the level of punishment increases, is her conclusion. She says it takes as little to be investigated as playing Ukrainian music, or wearing clothes that are blue and yellow, the same colors as the Ukrainian flag. Inna Sangadzhieva says the repression is extra big now and until the Russian presidential election on 17 March. – For Putin, it is important that there are no critical voices left in Russia, and especially now in the coming months leading up to the presidential election, she says to news. Met the dog of Russia’s man in Kirkenes Olesia feels safe in Kirkenes, even though Russia is only 15 minutes away by car, at the border station at Storskog. She knows that if she goes back to Russia, a long prison sentence awaits. The Russian Consulate General in Finnmark. Olesia says it is a bit strange that the Russian authorities are present in the city she now lives in. Photo: Atle Staalesen / BarentsObserver The Russian consulate general is located in the city. Without knowing it, Olesia bumped into the Russian consul general a few weeks ago. She cheerfully tells about the meeting. – I was out for a walk with my mother and went for an evening walk here in Kirkenes. Then a dog came over to say hello, right behind came a man. We chatted, and he switched to Russian. He said he had read about me. But only afterwards did my mother say that it was the Russian consul general we were talking to, says Olesia with a laugh. Olesia is proud of what she has done, and her plan is to develop her journalistic skills in Norway. At the same time, she is not surprised that there are so few who protest against Russia’s war in Ukraine. – The repression is great, towards activists and journalists. Anyone who says something against the war receives fines and warnings, in the worst case an investigation is initiated which ends in court proceedings. People are simply afraid of prison, says Olesia Krivtsova to news.
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Says she was threatened with a sledgehammer and kept quiet in Russia
