Olena Osipova, a 77-year-old artist, unveiled an exhibition of pacifist signs on Tuesday in the former Russian imperial capital in conflict-torn Ukraine, where she is called the “conscience of St. Petersburg” and opposes all wars, she said. AFP.

The exhibition, which was solemnly opened at the headquarters of the local branch of the Yabloko opposition party in the presence of about 30 people, brings together 15 works from 2014-2022.

Among them is one called “Eyes of Conscience”: on it is the face of a little girl with wide-open eyes, and at the bottom of the poster in Russian and Ukrainian: “Mom, I’m afraid of war. “

“This is an exhibition against the war, it’s tragic,” comments the artist, whose age makes her sit down quickly. “This is repentance, even if nobody in our country wants to repent now,” she adds.

According to Oleksandr Shyshlov, head of the local Yabloko party, not all of the artist’s works could be presented at the exhibition due to Russian laws that provide for serious punishment for those who spread “false information” about the army or try to “discredit” it.

Some of the posters “contain words that could get us fined or worse,” he said.

Osipova has been known for several years as a staunch opponent of Vladimir Putin’s policies and, above all, any armed conflicts.

She made the peace sign for the first time in 2002, after Chechen militants took hostages in a Moscow theater on Durbrovka.

Since then, few protests in St. Petersburg have taken place without her.

She was stopped by the police several times and her posters were often confiscated.

For 40-year-old Serhiy, one of the first visitors to the exhibition, “as long as there are people like Olena Osipova, there is hope.”