The authorities in Crimea are cracking down. A court convicted a beauty queen of the Russian-occupied peninsula. The reason: singing the song "Tscherwona Kalina". This is "the anthem of struggle of an extremist organization," it says.
Two women on the Russian-annexed Black Sea island have been convicted of discrediting the Russian army for singing a popular Ukrainian song in Crimea. According to the police, Olga Valeeva, who won a beauty contest in 2022, has to pay a fine of 40,000 rubles – the equivalent of 680 euros. Her friend was sentenced to ten days in prison. Both had struck up the patriotic song "Tscherwona Kalina" on a balcony.
A video of the singing women was published on the Internet as an Instagram story in September, which disappeared again after 24 hours. Crimea's "Interior Ministry" told Telegram that the song in question was "the combat anthem of an extremist organization." A court found the two women, born in 1987 and 1989, guilty of discrediting the Russian army and publicly showing Nazi symbols. In connection with the Russian military operation in Ukraine, Russia repeatedly states that the national symbols used by Kyiv are extremist and Nazi-like signs.
The Crimean police also released a video in which the two women apologized for singing the song. She didn't know that the song had a "nationalistic character," said one of the two. "I certainly didn't mean to spread propaganda," she added. Valeeva said on Instagram that she "didn't want to harm anyone". "We only sang a Ukrainian song. We thought it's just a song that we've known for a long time," she explained.
Last month, the Moscow-installed authorities in Crimea warned residents against "harsh" measures when singing such songs. The background was that "Tscherwona Kalina" had been sung at a wedding.
"Singing such nationalist anthems - especially during military special operations - will be punished," administration chief Sergei Aksyonov told Telegram in September, using the official Russian phrase for the war in Ukraine. "People who do that act like traitors," he explained. The Russian secret service FSB has its own group dealing with the matter. Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014.
