Anastasia Shevchenko opposed Putin. Her disabled daughter needed to die alone

OSLO KONSERTHUS (Nettavisen): Anastasia Shevtjenko (44) is without doubt one of the foremost audio system at this 12 months’s Oslo Freedom Discussion board.

Shevchenko has overtly protested towards President Vladimir Putin and his regime. It’s costly.

When the mom of three opposed the Putin regime, she was robbed of the chance to be current at her daughter’s deathbed.

The lady Alina died alone within the intensive care unit of a hospital in Russia. The 17-year-old was mentally and bodily disabled. She was nonetheless like a baby. A mom of three fights again tears as she talks about her useless daughter.

– Why is Putin’s regime so afraid that they refused you to be along with your daughter when she died?

– That is how violence works. Arrests are random. It might be a mom of three, it might be a disabled particular person and it might be a baby. It might be anybody, stated Shevchenko to Nettavisen.

– It does not matter you probably have kids. Basically, the system doesn’t care about kids. Putin says household is an important worth of Russians. However in actuality they do not care about kids or ladies. It is simply the way in which it’s, she tells Nettavisen through video hyperlink from Vilnius in Lithuania.

Shevchenko was anticipated to be bodily current on the convention in Oslo, however the scenario made it troublesome for her to journey. She not has a sound Russian passport, and has been declared a refugee by Russia.

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Arrested and positioned beneath home arrest

Shevchenko is a Russian political activist. She was the coordinator of the Open Russia motion within the metropolis of Rostov in southern Russia. The motion was based by Putin critic and former oligarch Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky.

Shevchenko was arrested by the Russian police in January 2019 for his political actions. She was positioned beneath home arrest for 2 years pending trial.

– What was it wish to be beneath home arrest in Russia?

– Being beneath home arrest in Russia means you may’t exit. You will need to keep at residence always. Nobody can use the web or talk with anybody.

– It’s troublesome to spend a very long time in a two-room house with the youngsters and my mom. If they’re sick and within the hospital, they cannot name me as a result of I am not allowed to make use of the telephone.

Died alone

She highlights two occasions that have been notably troublesome and difficult when the home was put beneath arrest.

– My daughter died per week after the arrest. She died of bronchitis within the hospital. She was on their lonesome. There was nobody there to feed her or change her components. I may have saved her life if that they had let me go there earlier, she says.

– Alina was like a baby. And it’s a crime to go away a baby fully alone on this means, says Shevchenko.

She ended up having a really brief go to to the hospital. However by then the lady was already unconscious, and her life was about to empty from her little physique.

– I used to be solely there for 5 minutes and I cried the entire time. She was unconscious and her physique was chilly. She did not see me till she died. I used to be despatched away by the physician. Alina died an hour later, says Shevchenko.

– The second incident was when the prosecutors utilized for a five-year jail sentence for me. We waited for the decision for ten days. The kids slept with me each single night time, and I awoke crying each morning. This was a troublesome time for all of us.

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Escape to Lithuania

Shevchenko was sentenced to 4.5 years in jail in 2021. So she is the primary particular person to be convicted of becoming a member of an “undesirable group”.

It is a comparatively new felony legislation that got here into drive in Russia in 2015. The legislation goals to focus on impartial organizations that obtain overseas monetary assist.

Within the late summer season of 2022, Shevchenko took her two remaining kids – Vlada (20) and Mikhail (12) – and fled in exile to Vilnius in Lithuania. Russia is now generally known as exile.

– What would occur should you traveled again to Russia at present?

– I need it in Russia. I’d be arrested and imprisoned for a number of years. Additionally, they’ll discover different crimes to make a brand new felony case towards me.

– How do they deal with you in jail?

– Once I spent a number of days in jail earlier than the home arrest, they stated it was the worst expertise of my life. And in some methods, it was simply that. I used to be alone. They did not give me sufficient water. I would not eat the meals. They stripped me and searched me. There have been cockroaches all over the place. No mattress, only a mat. And a video digital camera in entrance of the bathroom.

– I used to be most anxious about my kids on the time, she says.

– He stated that they normally put poison within the shampoo

In latest many years, there have been a number of meltdowns and tried assassinations of exiled Russians who criticize the regime, which underlines how harmful it’s for Russians to overtly criticize Putin.

Former FSB agent Aleksandr Litvinenko was killed by radioactive poisoning in a London pub in 2006. Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia have been tried the killing by a kind of nerve agent in Salisbury within the UK in 2018.

Opposition politician Alexei Navalny was poisoned however survived after receiving medical therapy in Germany in 2020. Navalny died aged simply 47 in a Siberian jail earlier this 12 months.

– Do you ever concern to your life, regardless that you might be an exile in Lithuania?

– By no means. I concern for these in jail in Russia. No must be afraid of the place I’m. They’ll do something anyway. Even should you rent a safety guard, you might be nonetheless not protected. In the event that they wish to kill you, they’ll.

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When Shevchenko was on an American journey to Silicon Valley final 12 months, she had an disagreeable expertise.

– I used to be in a lodge in San Francisco. Once I returned to my lodge room, the door was open. There was an odd odor within the lodge room. He did not really feel good. I used to be solely there for just a few seconds to get a bag, after which I went out once more, she says.

– An investigative journalist advised me that I used to be very fortunate to go away the room, that I did not sleep there, that perhaps poison was left inside that lodge room. He stated that they normally put poison within the shampoo or bathe gel. And then you definately get poisoned while you use it. He stated: By no means use it when you find yourself in a lodge.

Shevchenko says she has realized to dwell with the hazard, with out being too paranoid. She nonetheless makes use of each the shampoo and the bathe gel when she stays in lodges.

The 44-year-old is most involved concerning the situation of these in jail in Russia.

Shevchenko continues to combat tirelessly from his base in Vilnius. The hope is that in the future she is going to have the ability to crack the Putin regime.

She writes numerous letters to imprisoned political prisoners and Ukrainian prisoners of conflict. She places them in contact with members of the family and sends them cash.

– I write many letters to prisoners in Russia each week. I understand how they really feel. The final letter I obtained was from a feminine political prisoner in Russia. She wrote to me: “I am not going to dwell right here.”

– She was fully alone in a chilly and darkish room. She sat on the ground. And she or he will not get any assist. She stated it was laborious and he or she did not wish to dwell like that.

In keeping with Shevchenko, Ukrainian prisoners of conflict are the worst in Russian captivity.

– The letters and telephone calls I’ve with them are horrible. They haven’t any meals. They’re overwhelmed daily. They’re humiliated, she says.

Burger and democracy

Shevchenko believes that it’s the accountability of all Russians to take up the combat towards Putin and his regime.

– In case you are Russian, it’s not sufficient to say that you’re towards the conflict. You must do one thing, she stresses.

– Is there any chance of a democratic Russia sooner or later?

– I dwell in hope. Why not? We aren’t distinctive individuals who can not construct a democracy. However sadly the scenario is so nice now that it may well’t be finished, she says.

Shevchenko says she was satisfied that Russia would get a brand new president after Putin served two phrases in 2008.

On the time, the Russian structure didn’t permit one and the identical particular person to serve greater than two consecutive phrases.

– We received a brand new president. Dmitry Medvedev. It was kind of good, however actually not the conflict with Georgia. It was an phantasm that we lived in a free nation. He met Obama and ate a burger with him. We had no political management. We had an impartial press, she says.

Shevchenko refers back to the time taken by President Barack Obama along with his Russian colleague Medvedev on the burger store Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Virginia within the fall of 2010.

– All that is unimaginable now. Every thing received worse after Medvedev, says Shevchenko.

The actual fact is that Putin has modified the structure, which allowed him to rule Russia with an iron fist for nearly fifty years. He was not too long ago re-elected for one more presidential time period.

The previously Western Mevedev has now reworked into an aggressive conflict hawk, repeatedly spewing nuclear threats on social media.

– What message will you will have for our Norwegian readers, Shevchenko?

– I’d say that the Russians actually love Norway. Each Russian is aware of the place Norway is and what Norway is like.

Final month, the federal government determined to shut Norway’s border to Russian residents. This is applicable to Russians, whose objective is tourism and pointless journey.

– I learn about this legislation that prohibits Russians from coming to Norway. I perceive the priority, however that is not the way it works. If Russian intelligence needs to get into Norway, they will. This legislation particularly stops folks like me.

– I feel that’s unfair. I’ve spent the final 15 years criticizing Putin and talking out towards the regime. Now I need it with my residence nation, she says.