Sasha Skotshilenko brings her story from prison to Iceland

Russian artist Sasha Skotshilenko, whose comic about depression became a hit, is in Iceland to speak about prison and life under Vladimir Putin, mbl.is reports.

Skotshilenko and her wife, Sofia Subbotina, are visiting Reykjavík for an Amnesty International event at Harpa on Sunday. Pussy Riot member Diana Burkot will perform, and Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard will attend as guest of honour.

Skotshilenko was arrested in spring 2022 for spreading what Russian authorities called false information about the army. She was sentenced to seven years in prison under Russia’s fake news laws after putting messages about the war in Ukraine on supermarket price tags in St Petersburg. She served two and a half years before her release in a prisoner exchange on 1 August 2024.

Among those released in the exchange were Russian opposition figures Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, and US journalist Evan Gershkovich. Russia received Vadim Krasikov, an FSB agent and contract killer convicted in Germany for the 2019 murder of Selimkhan Khangoshvili in a Berlin park.

Born in St Petersburg in 1990, Skotshilenko now lives in exile in Berlin with Subbotina, who is also her manager. She told mbl.is that, in her final years in Russia, she was an underground musician and artist and lived in a communal apartment with about ten other families.

Amnesty International designated Skotshilenko a prisoner of conscience. Her case was part of the organisation’s Your Name Saves Lives campaign in 2022. The Sunday event marks 25 years of the campaign.