On Friday, a judge in St. Petersburg sentenced 19-year-old anti-war activist Daria Kozyreva to nearly three years in prison for persistently “discrediting” the Russian military.

Judge Dmitry Ovrakh of the Petrogradsky District Court imposed a sentence of two years and eight months at a medium-security penal facility and prohibited Kozyreva from posting anything online for two and a half years. Prosecutors had requested a six-year prison term.

Kozyreva was arrested in February 2024 after she attached a poem by Ukrainian writer Taras Shevchenko to his monument in St. Petersburg.

In August, law enforcement officials filed a second charge against Kozyreva, referencing her interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) after she was expelled from St. Petersburg State University. In court, Kozyreva refuted the allegations.

She was quoted by the exiled news organization Mediazona, stating, “In my view, the military has discredited itself since the full-scale invasion, so any criticism of it won’t diminish its reputation.”

During her closing remarks, Kozyreva condemned the invasion that began in February 2022 and commended Ukrainians for “defending their homeland.”

“Ukraine is a sovereign country and a free nation, and it will determine its own future,” she declared. “It’s obvious that Putin struggles to accept that Ukraine is an independent state.”

Kozyreva was released from pre-trial detention in February under conditions that restricted her from leaving home at night, accessing the internet, or speaking to the media until December 2. In 2023, she was fined 30,000 rubles (approximately $365) for an anti-war post on social media and subsequently expelled from university.

The previous year, Kozyreva was detained for writing “Murderers, you bombed it to rubble. Judases” on a public artwork symbolizing the “brotherhood” between St. Petersburg and Mariupol—an occupied Ukrainian city that suffered extensive destruction during a Russian siege.