Anti-Putin activists working in the shadow: “I am ready to be included in the list of terrorists”

Vladimir Putin's acolytes forbid his books, the security device canceled the passport, and his spies seem to be sure, reports Daily Beast.

Prison-shutterstock photo

Some of the most hunted internal enemies of Russian President Vladimir Putin is not a terrorist, a revolted general or a politician like Alexei Navalniî, but a poet who speaks calmly, with an asymmetrical haircut and a tattoo with a red rose on the neck.

But Daria Serenko is undoubtedly a woman she is afraid of. And one that seems determined to destroy, as it represents, among others, a challenge to his hypermascus vision of Russia.

The feminist movement of anti-war resistance that he founded on February 29 urges women to rule against the Ukraine war. Forbidden by the government, the group currently has thousands of women from 80 cities in Russia. Serenko is fighting to undermine Russia's patriarchal code and therefore represents a danger even from exile.

The feminist resistance anti -war has organized hundreds of anti -war protests in at least 60 cities in Russia. Its activists publish anti -war poems, slogans and calls for action on price labels in stores, as well as on social networks.

Distribute letters with the testimonies of Ukrainian women who have suffered because of the war and anti-war postcards. “A war again. No one talks about him. The hearts of our great -grandparents and grandparents when we dress in the soldiers, when we go to war against our neighbor,” you can read on them.

Serenko, 32, is not known in the West, but has become a name in Russia from the prism of the ferocity that Putin tries to stifle his voice. In March, on the day of Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, landed in Moscow for his first round with Putin, Russian president ordered his people to “remove 48 forbidden books from the” Libraries of St. Petersburg.

These include Serenko's collection of poems. “You do not have to burn them; make sure that people do not read them anymore,” said one of the beatings while implementing the order.

In exile

Prohibition of his books is not the first attack on Serenko. The authorities appointed her as a “foreign agent” in 2023, and last year, the Kremlin labeled her group as a “undesirable organization”, which attracts a sentence of six years in prison. Serenko spent the first two weeks of the war after the bars. Putin's persecution forced her to exile in Georgia in March 2022.

Russian prosecutors have accused Serenko of “escaping from the duties of a foreign agent.” In April 2024, Russia issued an arrest warrant on behalf of the feminist poet, refusing a new Russian passport. Currently, she asks for political asylum in the European Union.

“Feminists are the most visible political power in the opposition; we have become actors on the streets of all Russia,” Serenko told Daily Beast, adding that he feels “angry” rather than scared.

“We have been pronounced against the war on big scenes in Europe and the United States, so we, feminists, are targeted as the main internal enemies of Russia, along with LGBTQ+ and migrants,” she said.

“Shortly after Putin started the war, I found a sign on my door that wrote:” The enemy of the people “. I was in prison at that time,” she added. On February 8, 2022, a court in Moscow sentenced Serenko to 15 days in prison for propaganda or public exposure of Nazi signs or symbols or extremist organizations. ”

Serenko's crime was a post on Instagram in September 2021 with a sign of red exclamation, symbolizing the strategy of the “smart vote” opposition, which recommends the voting of the best positioned candidates to defeat the ruling party. Serenko published her in support of the opposition leader, Alexei Navalnîi, who died in February 2024 while in prison.

She remembered when her high-ranking employers in the Kremlin decided it was time to get rid of her in 2019 because she was involved in activism. They gave it a choice: “My boss from the Ministry of Culture said it directly:” You bite the hand that feeds you. “He gave me an ultimatum: I act as a director of an art gallery, or I am fired for activism,” Serenko told The Daily Beast. “I chose to resign. The university where I worked also chose to break away from me.”

Fight for women's safety

As Putin repressed dissent in the middle of the war with Ukraine, he made the country more dangerous to women. Serenko is fighting for their safety even in exile.

On March 8, 2020, Russian feminists marked the International Day of Solidarity of Women and Struggle for Rights, protesting against Putin's decision to decriminalize domestic violence before the war, with banners that wrote “Putin is not the friend of the woman” and “we are not afraid.” Standing in front of the crowd, Serenko read the manifesto he had written for the rally.

“For me, March 8 is the day when feminist women are mentioned. Many of them have died or have been closed so that I have now the chance to have education, vote, work, have the right to divorce or to own properties,” said Serenko.

Almost every week, the channel of the movement on Telegram publishes news about the killing of Russian women. The killers are spouses or lovers acting with impunity; President Putin piles criminals who accept to fight on the front line in Ukraine.

In February, Kirill Chaplygin stabbed his wife, Ekaterina, jealousy, in front of her mother and her five-year-old daughter, in Acinsk, Siberia. The woman had almost managed to escape, but she was stuck in the snow. “Eve will never forgive you!” She shouted – her last words. Today, Chaplygin asks Putin to forgive him in exchange for his military service on the front.

“We have to stop killing women. Russia is 70 in all countries – one of the worst countries when it comes to protecting women against violence, domestic and sexual,” said Serenko.

Serenko organizes community groups and discussions.

“We continue to unite feminist activists in Russia, but we are cautious. No feminist group can be officially affiliated with us – it is too dangerous. So we build networks underground, we talk about reproductive justice, we study history,” Serenko told Daily Beast. “I am ready to be included in the list of terrorists.”