Miss Crimea 2022 found guilty of discrediting Russian army after singing pro-Ukrainian song

Authored by sbs.com.au and submitted by chariotchoogle
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Miss Crimea was one of two women who were found guilty of discrediting the Russian army by singing a Ukrainian patriotic 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.

A video of the women singing was posted on Instagram stories, which auto-deletes after 24 hours.

Ms Valeyeva, who won the beauty pageant in May this year, was fined $1,042 for singing a Ukrainian song and posting it on Instagram. Source: Instagram / Dmitry Elaschuk Crimean police said Ms Valeyeva was fined 40,000 rubles ($1,042), 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.

"I did not know and did not realise that it had a nationalist character and definitely did not want to spread propaganda by singing it," one of the women said.

Earlier Ms Valeyeva posted on Instagram that she did not wish to "harm anyone".

"We just sang a Ukrainian song. We thought it was just a little song that we knew for a long time," she said.

Last month, the Moscow-installed head of the peninsula Sergei 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," Mr Aksyonov said in a video on Telegram in September, using Moscow's terminology to describe its military intervention in Ukraine.

"People who do this are acting like traitors," he added.

Mr Aksyonov said there was a special FSB security service group working on the matter.

topofthecc on October 5th, 2022 at 01:41 UTC »

If anything, the Russian army has discredited the Russian army.

majj27 on October 5th, 2022 at 01:38 UTC »

This makes no sense. It's not HER fault the Russian Army sucks.

Any_Coyote6662 on October 5th, 2022 at 01:03 UTC »

Unhinged country jails people for singing the "wrong" songs. Lol Pretty much the mark of an insane government.