The ongoing protest against the ongoing war in Ukraine mostly has a female face in Russia.

At the weekend in Moscow, the two activists Natalya Perova and Lyudmila Annenkova stood in front of the Foreign Ministry in white clothes smeared with red paint and posted the photo on social networks under the title "We can't wash the blood off".

Kerstin Holm

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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The image of the friends holding hands, which so vividly illustrates the desperation and shame at the bloody deeds committed by their country, immediately spread through opposition Telegram channels.

At the same time, it was ridiculed by bloggers loyal to the state, one of whom railed against the "dirty stupid geese" who smeared jam on themselves at the crack of dawn.

When Perova was first arrested on Monday and Annenkowa then turned herself in to the police, the officers initially wanted to sue the two women for "discrediting the Russian armed forces", which carries a fine.

After a call from the superiors, they were also certified as having repeatedly violated the right to demonstrate.

This makes it possible to capture both.

Meanwhile, on Monday in St. Petersburg, the pre-trial detention was extended until July 1 for artist and musician Alexandra Skochilenko, who replaced price tags in a supermarket with messages about Russian atrocities in the Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Bucha.

The 31-year-old Skochilenko was denounced by a customer of the supermarket and has been in custody since April 11.

The artist processed her bipolar personality in a book about depression and treated mentally ill people by making music together.

Since she suffers from the autoimmune disease celiac disease, she has to eat a gluten-free diet, which the prison authorities refused her for weeks.

Her partner Sofia Subbotina reports that Skochilenko complains about health problems that are not treated and that her cellmates verbally abused and harassed her.

St. Petersburg artist Dmitry Shagin recalled in a YouTube video that artists are sensitive people and appealed to the court for mercy.

Journalists and supporters showed up for the court date.

But the request to release Skochilenko to house arrest while the investigation was under way was denied.

Due to the law on the dissemination of alleged "fake news" passed after the beginning of the war, Skochilenko faces a fine and up to ten years in prison.

The repression is intended to intimidate the last remnants of Russian civil society.

In line with this, according to the Kommersant portal, the Russians are no longer reading books about investments and self-optimization, but are increasingly finding out about totalitarianism.

The memoirs of the Viennese psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who survived three German concentration camps, and George Orwell's novel dystopia "1984" are bestsellers in Russia.

The case of the popular and passionately pacifist rock musician Yuri Shevchuk, who recently reminded the audience of the many war casualties in Ukraine at a performance with his band DDT in Ufa, seems to be taking a favorable turn.

Shevchuk, a St. Petersburger like Putin, who had repeatedly criticized the press censorship, the caste system and totalitarianism, warned his fans that home is not the president's buttocks that you have to kiss.

Rather, home is the poor old woman who sells potatoes at the train station.

Police officers then drew up a protocol according to which he had discredited the armed forces, which a Petersburg court sent back, however, because the police had not made it clear to what extent Shevchuk had insulted the soldiers.

An unnamed informant, citing a former St. Petersburg official, reported to an opposition portal that all the judges in Russia's second capital refused to hear the Shevchuk case.

The net audience cheers, and for the Telegram user, the 65-year-old Shevchuk is a role model: because he sets an example of how one should live, namely in such a way that no judge dares to open a procedure.