 Russian artist and musician who replaced supermarket-priced tags with demands for an end-to-conflict in Ukraine appeared in court on Monday. Alexandra Skokolenko, 33, known to her friends as Sasha, has spent over a year and a half in prison in St. Petersburg as the Russian legal system deals with her case. Critics say it is part of a crackdown on anyone who speaks out against Moscow's special military operation. Authorities have detained nearly 20,000 people for propice activity and opened over 800 criminal cases against propice dissidents, according to the OVD Info Rights Group. The Justice Ministry has designated the rights group a foreign agent and its website is blocked in Russia. Russia tightened its laws on dissent after sending its troops into Ukraine on February 24 last year, deepening its action against critics. Critics Moscow regards as unacceptably divisive as the country is locked in what President Vladimir Putin has portrayed as an existential struggle with the West. The judge did not like it. She decided to remove all of them. And she did not have the authority to remove all of them. The law says that she can remove the face of the person who has been violated. Do you understand that this is not about everyone? Because by removing all of them, she violates the principle of justice.