Raging Against Vladimir Putin’s War Machine
In Russia and occupied Ukraine, many thousands of civilians have been jailed or forcibly disappeared for speaking out against the invasion. The numbers reflect a crackdown on dissent worse than at any point since the 1950s.
Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine has led to a brutal crackdown on civil society in occupied territory as well as repression of domestic dissent. (Valery Sharifulin / AFP via Getty Images)
On May 16, 2022, the Ukrainian artist Bohdan Ziza poured blue and yellow paint — the colors of his country’s flag — onto a municipal administration building in his hometown, Yevpatoria, in Crimea.
Ziza posted a video of the action online, with a call to “adherents of graffiti culture, all the vandals of Crimea, Russia and Belarus” to protest against “the most horrific war” unleashed by “[Vladimir] Putin and the machine of state.” He was soon arrested and charged with “committing a terrorist act” and “incitement to terrorism.”
In June 2023, Ziza used his final statement to the Russian military court that sentenced him to fifteen years’ imprisonment to denounce the war again: “My action was a cry from the heart, from my conscience, to those who were and are afraid — just as I was afraid — but who also did not want this war.”
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