Prosecutor seeks probation for woman who left note on grave of Putin’s parents

A prosecutor in St. Petersburg has requested a three-year suspended sentence for a woman who left a note with an “insulting inscription” on the grave of President Vladimir Putin’s parents, human rights group OVD-Info said on Wednesday.

A criminal case was opened in October against Irina Tsybaneva, 60, who investigators say placed the note in a city cemetery earlier that month.

Russian news outlet Mediazona said the note addressed Putin’s mother and father as the “parents of a maniac” and that “the whole world prays for his death”.

“Death to Putin, you raised a freak and a murderer,” it said.

Authorities have charged Tsybaneva under a law punishing the desecration of dead bodies and their burial places “on the basis of political hostility”. After she was detained in October, Tsybaneva was initially placed under temporary house arrest.

The Primorsky District Court, where Tsybaneva is being tried, did not immediately respond to a request to confirm details of her case or say when a verdict is expected.

Tsybaneva did not deny that she had written the note, according to Mediazona. She said she penned the message after she watched the news and “understood that everything is very scary, everything is very sad, and there are many dead”.

According to OVD-Info, 19,673 people have been detained for protesting against Russia’s war in Ukraine since it invaded on Feb. 24 last year, and criminal cases have been launched against more than 550.