A Russian court has sentenced sculptor Jacques Tilly to eight years and six months in prison in absentia for carnival floats that mocked President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. The Moscow ruling has sparked sharp criticism from political circles in Berlin.
“Once again this shows that dictators fear art and culture and therefore curtail freedom of expression” foreign‑policy politician Ralf Stegner (SPD) told the “Rheinische Post”‘s Friday edition. “It is also a reminder that we must defend those freedoms”.
Janis Ehling, federal chairman of the Left, added that the Russian judiciary appears to be using the case as a “show trial” to signal that it monitors critics abroad and prosecutes them at home. “This is also a warning to the many Russian citizens in exile” Ehling said to the newspaper.
He further argued that the German federal government must grant asylum to all Russians fleeing the regime to protect them from Putin’s system. “If the Putin regime reacts so thin‑skinned to a carnival float from Düsseldorf, Moscow’s nerves must be truly exposed”.