BOHDAN ZIZA

Bohdan Ziza is a Crimean artist who is against the occupation actions of the Russian Federation.

On May 16, 2022, Bohdan doused the occupation administration of the city of Yevpatoria with blue and yellow paint and allegedly tried to set fire to the building’s doors as a protest against Russia’s war against Ukraine. He was detained on the same day; the law enforcement officers indicted him on four articles of the Criminal Code of Russia — a terrorist act, a threat to commit a terrorist attack, an incitement to terrorism, and politically motivated vandalism.

In 2023, Bohdan was transferred from the pre-trial detention centre on the peninsula to the pre-trial detention centre in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

On June 6, 2023, a Russian military court sentenced him to 15 years of imprisonment in a general regime colony.

As a sign of protest, Bohdan Ziza began a hunger strike with a call to deprive him of Russian citizenship (which he was forced to obtain in order to live on the peninsula and take care of his grandmother) and to release all political prisoners of the Kremlin.

Currently, the Crimean political prisoner is in prison No. 2 (T-2) “Volodymyr Central” in the Russian city of Volodymyr.