SAINT PETERSBURG: Supporters of an 18-year-old Russian street musician arrested after performing anti-war songs in public expressed frustration at the legal case against her as she attended court on Tuesday.
Diana Loginova, known by the stage name Naoko, was fined 30,000 rubles ($400) by a Saint Petersburg court on Tuesday for “discrediting the army” through her performance of an anti-war song by banned Russian artist Monetochka.
Since her arrest, a flurry of videos in support of Naoko and her band Stoptime have flooded TikTok, while other young street performers have expressed solidarity with her in public, despite the risks of fines or jail sentences themselves.
Before that, she and two other band members were jailed for around two weeks each for organizing an unlawful “mass gathering” in connection with one of her performances outside a Saint Petersburg metro station.
Videos published on social media have shown her performing the songs in front of dozens of people, a rare display of dissent in a country where anti-war protest is forbidden.
Following her court appearance on Tuesday, Loginova was taken away in a car alongside police officers to an unknown location.
Independent Russian media outlets reported she could face more severe charges later.
“This sets a precedent: someone being arrested for singing,” said Seraph, an 18-year-old supporter of Loginova near the courtroom.
“Her performances inspired hope. I happened to attend her concert and sang along.”
Russia banned criticism of the army shortly after launching its full-scale military offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, and has detained thousands under this charge.
Another of Loginova’s supporters outside the court, 20-year-old Rimma, said she came to “support Diana and everyone involved in creativity.”
“Creative freedom was violated. I attended her concerts. The atmosphere was wonderful. You feel like you’re among like-minded people,” she told AFP.
Ivan, 20, also criticized the charges against Loginova.
“I came to support someone who was detained for nothing, just for singing,” he told AFP.
‘Arrested for singing’: Russia’s case against teen busker stirs anger
https://arab.news/49c35
‘Arrested for singing’: Russia’s case against teen busker stirs anger
- Naoko performed an anti-war song by banned Russian artist Monetochka
- A flurry of videos in support of Naoko and her band Stoptime have flooded TikTok
Afghanistan says it thwarted Pakistani airstrike on Bagram Air Base as fighting enters fourth day
- The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years
- Pakistan accuses Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it
KABUL: Afghanistan thwarted attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former US military base north of Kabul, authorities said Sunday, while cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretched into a fourth day.
The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years, with Pakistan declaring that it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan.
The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.
Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants until a Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting. But several rounds of peace talks in Turkiye in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and the two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.
On Sunday, the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military jets had entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base” at around 5 a.m.
The statement said Afghan forces responded with “anti-aircraft and missile defense systems” and had managed to thwart the attack.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.
Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic US withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, US President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a US presence at the base.
The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday.
Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.
The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.
After Thursday’s Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.
Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having seized it during fighting Friday. The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless.”
Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday in the border areas.
The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday morning.
Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday, killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
