'It's not the end': Russian activist prepares for jail
Anastasia Shevchenko has spent the past week packing a bag for prison and recording voice messages for her two children to listen to when she's gone. The opposition activist was placed under house arrest over two years ago, accused of links to a pro-democracy group based in the UK and banned in Russia under a controversial 2015 law on "undesirable organisations".
A judge in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don will rule on Thursday whether to sentence the single mother to five years behind bars, as the prosecutor has requested.
"It's a nightmare," Ms Shevchenko told me on the eve of the verdict, sorting through the large bag of items for prison that she's taking with her to court.
She's banned from entering most shops under the terms of her house arrest, so her teenaged daughter Vlada collected everything together - including a notebook to keep a prison diary, warm socks and cockroach traps.
"I'm not afraid, but I worry about my family," the 41-year old activist confided in English. "I explain to them that there is another life after jail: it's not the end, I won't die! But they cry anyway."
'Threat to state security'
The case against Anastasia Shevchenko stems from a political seminar and an authorised protest in 2018, when she stood in a central Rostov park with a banner declaring she was "fed up" with Vladimir Putin.
The investigator claimed that she was acting on behalf of a banned organisation, with "criminal intent", and that her actions constituted a "threat to state security". For months, the English teacher was kept under surveillance with a secret camera installed above her bed.
Her lawyers say no evidence of foreign-backed subterfuge was ever captured as a result.
The defence team also argue that the Open Russia opposition movement Ms Shevchenko belonged to, which is legal, has no formal ties to a very similarly named organisation based in Britain which was founded by the Kremlin critic and tycoon-in-exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
image copyrightGetty Images"Debates, seminars, political rallies are our right to express our opinion!" Ms Shevchenko argues of the activity that led to her arrest. "I don't know where I committed a crime. I really didn't. But they treat me like a very dangerous person."
Preparing for the worst
Tolerance of open dissent has sunk even lower since Ms Shevchenko's detention in January 2019.
The jailing of the opposition politician Alexei Navalny last month sparked the biggest street protests this country has seen in years.
President Putin now talks even more frequently of foreign agents and outside "meddling": he argues that the West is trying to destabilise and weaken Russia, using the opposition as a tool.
Many people linked to Navalny have been charged with a myriad of crimes.
Since the prosecutor in her own case asked for a five-year prison sentence - more than expected and even longer the term handed down to Navalny - Anastasia is steeling herself for the worst.
"I recorded a message today telling you I love you," she tells 9-year old Misha, who's lying on his bunk bed playing computer games.
She's also been filming videos for 16-year-old Vlada with instructions on things like reading the electricity meter and turning on the oven, though the children's grandmother will care for them if she's imprisoned.
The family have been sharing a bed lately, anxious to be as close as possible for whatever time they've got.
'Be more responsible'
In her final speech to the court last week, Anastasia Shevchenko asked whether the state hadn't "sucked enough blood" from her family and called on the judge to "be human".
Her eldest daughter, Alina, who was severely disabled from birth, fell ill while Anastasia was under arrest and the activist only got permission to see her in hospital shortly before she died.
She still hasn't been able to scatter the ashes.
"I asked them to be more responsible. To realise what they are doing to our family," Ms Shevchenko told me, adamant that the case against her was "absolutely false".
"It's very difficult for children to be without their mother, and without any reason," she argued. "Because I can't even explain why I go to jail. What it is I actually did that we should be separated."
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