Darya Kozyreva

25 June 2024

Darya Kozyreva, 18, is in pre-trial detention. She faces five years’ imprisonment for ‘repeatedly discrediting the Russian army.’ Below is her letter addressed to all Russians.

Source: Kholod

Daria Kozyreva is one of the youngest political prisoners in Russia. Two years ago she was still a student of the medical faculty at St. Petersburg State University and was active in expressing her views about society and politics. In 2023, she was charged with an administrative-law offence for an anti-war post on the VKontakte social media site and was expelled from the university. On 24 February 2024 Kozyreva was detained after she pasted a leaflet with a poem by the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko to a statue of the poet. If convicted, Kozyreva faces five years’ imprisonment for ‘repeatedly discrediting the Russian army.’ She has been remanded in custody in St. Petersburg, where she is awaiting trial. She has written a piece about keeping silent, fear and hope especially for Kholod. We publish it unedited.

Russia has become entangled in a heavy, impenetrable cocoon – a cocoon of silence. No matter how many crimes the Putin dictatorship has committed, how many cities it has seized and destroyed, how many murders and tortures it has on its hands, the answer to all these atrocities is a deafening silence.

Many prefer not to know what is happening, to close their eyes, to plug their ears. Many deceive themselves, wanting to be deceived. After all it is so easy to blindly believe what the TV says, even if it broadcasts the most monstrous lies.

But many people know very well what this evil regime is doing, They carry their disagreement, their indignation, their anger in their hearts. And still for some reason they keep silent.

As every villainy is committed with the silent consent of some person or other, so every dictatorship depends on the silence of the people. A colossus with feet of clay would not stand for one moment if all those who disagree with it were to speak out.

But they are silent.

Some think that everything has already been decided by the people in power and there is no reason for an ordinary person like them to get involved in any way. Some hope that other people will say everything on their behalf, but others also find excuses to keep silent.

Meanwhile, the real reason for this silence is fear, a terrible fear. No dictatorship can force everyone to believe in it. That is why it constantly resorts to fear, its first and final means of subjugating the people.

Germans in the time of Hitler obediently shouted ‘Heil!’ knowing what would happen to them if they did not. Soviet people under Stalin were afraid to whisper even in their own kitchens for fear of denunciation. The steamroller of repression doesn’t even need to crush all dissenters – it just needs to make examples of a few and the rest will keep their mouths shut.

The absurdity of the repression under Putin has reached the point where any little thing can become a reason for prosecution – and no one knows exactly what anyone is allowed to say anymore. The villain in the Kremlin is satisfied, that is what the villain in the Kremlin wants. As long as everyone is silent, he is safe.

And that’s exactly why we must not be silent. Of course it is understandable that people are afraid. It is difficult to put one’s job on the line, together with one’s future prospects, one’s freedom. In addition, many people have families. It is doubly scary for such people. But will it be easier for these families to live under a dictatorship, under terrible repression, behind an iron curtain?

A dictatorship can continue its atrocities, its lawlessness, so long as it feels it has the strength and the power. And nothing will change while everyone remains meekly silent.

So maybe it’s time to speak out?

Everyone who can speak out must do so. The few who dare to speak out now are too few to bring about change. This means all those who disagree with the regime in Moscow must speak out. It’s easy to send a few people to prison for speaking out – but only because they are few. But there aren’t enough prisons in Russia for everyone, for all those who disagree with the regime. Even if the authorities double the number of their prisons and penal colonies.

When everyone overcomes their fear and speaks out, it will be time for Putin’s gang to be afraid.

No evil lives forever, every dictatorship is bound to come to an end. It may collapse under its own weight, as the USSR did, or it may collapse because the people are finally rising up against it.

Don’t let this dictatorship survive any longer than it need. People, speak out!

Translated by Simon Cosgrove