If you think that the entire Russian establishment has gone batshit insane you'd be right.
Source: The Guardian
Two women in Russia-annexed Crimea, including Miss Crimea, have been found guilty of discrediting the Russian army by singing a patriotic Ukrainian song in a video posted on social media, local authorities have said.
Olga Valeyeva, who won the Miss Crimea 2022 beauty pageant, and an unnamed friend sang the popular Ukrainian Chervona Kalyna song on a balcony.
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Crimean police said Valeyeva was fined 40,000 roubles (£590), while her friend was given a 10-day prison sentence.“A video was published on the internet in which two girls performed a song that is the fighting anthem of an extremist organisation,” Crimea’s interior ministry said on Telegram on Monday.
It said a court found the women, born in 1987 and 1989, guilty of discrediting the Russian army and publicly demonstrating Nazi symbols.
Russia, whose troops are fighting in Ukraine, often alleges that Kyiv’s national symbols are extremist and Nazi-like.
Crimean police also posted a video of the women apologising for singing the song, blurring their faces.
A Russian official explains it in a way that must make sense to them.
Last month, the Moscow-installed head of the peninsula, Sergey Aksyonov, warned Crimeans that authorities would react “harshly” to such songs after Chervona Kalyna was played at a wedding.
“Singing such nationalist anthems – especially during the special military operation – will be punished,” Aksyonov said in a video on Telegram in September, using Moscow’s terminology to describe its invasion of Ukraine.
“People who do this are acting like traitors,” he added.
Their so-called confession and act of contrition, if it is actually them. Not sure why one got 10 days in jail and the other did not.
Several people have made this point below also. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
