By AFP and Kontur | 2025-07-15

WARSAW -- The elegant 72-year-old Russian placed her hand on her heart as the verdict fell: five and a half years in prison for posts opposing the war in Ukraine.

Then, according to a witness in the courtroom, "her nose began to bleed."

Only a few years earlier, Evgeniya Mayboroda had been a devoted admirer of Vladimir Putin and had praised his annexation of Crimea.

A photo from the courtroom in Shakhty, Russia, captured her stunned expression -- her sentence a warning of what can happen even to model citizens who question the war.

Mayboroda, from Rostov province near the Ukrainian border, was accused of spreading "false information" about the military and "making a public appeal to commit extremist activities."

Even before her conviction in January 2024, her postings on VK -- Russia's version of Facebook -- landed her on a "terrorist and extremist" watch list.

To understand how a Kremlin loyalist became an enemy of the state, AFP interviewed her by phone and spoke with those who knew her -- piecing together the story of an unlikely rebel in Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Love for Putin

Mayboroda was born June 10, 1951, near the coal-mining town of Shakhty. After her son, Sergei, died in a 1997 car crash at age 25, she turned to religion. Her faith, friends said, helped her recover.

"She is a leader in life," one said. "She is hard to break."

In late 2017, Mayboroda joined VK. Her profile traced a political journey.

For years, she posted images of cats, flowers, religious messages and Soviet nostalgia, along with effusive praise for President Vladimir Putin.

From March to August 2018, she shared about 30 photos of him, calling him a great leader who was restoring Russia's strength. She labeled former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko a "moron."

Like many disillusioned by the 1990s, Mayboroda embraced the Kremlin's message of restored pride and order.

'No to eternal lies'

Then something changed. In the summer of 2018, a sudden raising of the retirement age saw discontent with the government spread beyond the big cities.

"Normally Putin, as a great popular leader, likes to position himself as referee, guaranteeing the interest of the people," said French sociologist Karine Clement, a specialist on Russian protest movements.

"But this was the first time he spoke up to defend a reform that ... went against the interests of the poor."

While his popularity plummeted, there were no large protests.

At about the same time, the mood of Mayboroda's posts on politics began to change.

She started to share posts denouncing poverty in Russia, contrasting it with the country's vast natural resources.

The Maiski area where Mayboroda lived was wracked by neglect and unemployment, Tatyana Vasilchuk, a journalist from the independent outlet Novaya Gazeta, said, recalling a visit she made.

"It was drowning under rubbish," she said.

In 2020, Mayboroda made clear her opposition to a change in the constitution allowing Putin to stay in power until 2036, reposting a message that said: "No to an eternal Putin... No to eternal lies and corruption."

War

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. "One of the motives" for Putin, Clement said, was the need to silence opposition and "restore control."

Mayboroda, who had family in Ukraine, criticized the invasion on VK and expressed support for the Azov Brigade, a Ukrainian unit reviled in Russia that fiercely fought the invaders, especially during the siege of Mariupol in 2022.

In Russia, her dissent did not go unnoticed. She was arrested in February 2023, received a short jail term and fine, then faced a more serious case that led to her conviction.

Investigators said she condemned the Mariupol assault and reposted a video of a girl, seated in front of a swastika, calling for Russians to be killed -- footage used by the Kremlin to justify its claims of fighting "neo-Nazis."

Authorities called her a Nazi sympathizer, though the clip came from a pro-Kremlin source. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) called it Russian propaganda.

"She does not support that ideology," a source told AFP.

Mayboroda, who regularly crossed the border to visit her Ukrainian relatives before the war, told the court that one was wounded in a Russian strike on a building in Dnipro in the summer of 2022.

'Thou shalt not kill'

Unlike Ukrainian detainees who rights groups say are often held secretly and tortured, Mayboroda's conditions as a Russian citizen are comparatively better.

She may, in theory, receive censored letters and make occasional calls.

In June, after a six-month wait, AFP spoke to her during a 10-minute call from her prison in Rostov province.

Friends said she had been depressed, but her tone was unexpectedly upbeat after 18 months behind bars.

"The hardest thing for me was losing my freedom. It's very hard... But my faith and prayers help me," she said.

Asked about the video, she said, "it happened by accident. It was stupid."

She said she despised "hate" and "lies" and believed in "love and the joy of living."

Her opposition to the war, she said, was moral: "I am a (Christian) believer. Thou shalt not kill."

"Why all this? I don't understand," she added.