Aleksandra Skochilenko
Aleksandra Skochilenko | |
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Александра Скочиленко | |
| Born | 13 September 1990 Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg) |
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Aleksandra Yuryevna Skochilenko (Russian: Александра Юрьевна Скочиленко; born 13 September 1990), also known as Sasha Skochilenko, is a Russian artist, musician, poet, and former political prisoner.
Skochilenko was detained in April 2022 for distributing anti-war messages in Saint Petersburg. Amnesty International declared Skochilenko a prisoner of conscience, the Memorial human rights organization recognized her as a political prisoner, and the BBC included her on its 100 Women in 2022. In November 2023, Skochilenko was sentenced to seven years in prison under Russia's "fake news" law.
She was released in Ankara on 1 August 2024 as part of a complex international exchange of prisoners. Analyzing the event for CNN, Nathan Hodge wrote that Skochilenko's experience "laid bare the absurdity of Russia’s draconian wartime media laws".