A Russian influencer has been sentenced to ten months hard labour for appearing to “tickle” the breast of a famous war statue.
Alena Agafonova, 23, was convicted of the "Rehabilitation of Nazism” by a court for a social media video filmed last year at 279ft statue of a woman brandishing a sword named The Motherland Calls in Volgograd, previously Stalingrad, scene of one the WW2’s most epic battles. The influencer was released in the courtroom on the condition she does not leave Russia.
She has been banned from social media for two years and will lose ten per cent of future earnings as a fine to the state. Earlier she had to issue an abject apology for her social media stunt. Her sentence of hard labour in the community is lighter than expected compared with other rulings by courts in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Alena could have faced five years in jail. She had been detained after a video showed her appearing to “tickle” the figure’s right breast in footage she posted on Instagram, which is officially banned in Russia. In earlier custody hearings, the influencer appeared to cry before promising “not to make the same mistake again”.
After posting the video she absconded to Sri Lanka, but was detained in Moscow when she returned six months later. She was accused of “desecration of a burial site” and “cynical actions that disregard the norms of morality” as well as the “rehabilitation of Nazism”.
Her hounding shows the new morality in Russia under Putin amid the war with Ukraine. The authorities are cracking down on any behaviour seen as anti-patriotic or in defiance of “traditional values”. “I address all residents of Russia and Volgograd and ask everyone not to commit the acts I did last year because of my stupidity,” she said.
“I didn't even think that I could insult someone's feelings. I ask all Russian citizens for forgiveness.” The statue is among the most famous in Russia and commemorates those who fought and died in one of the bloodiest battles in the Second World War, resulting in a decisive Soviet victory against Hitler.