In the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug (KhMAO), the director of school No. 1 in the city of Pyt-Yakh wrote a complaint to the police against the mother of a schoolgirl who came to class with yellow and blue pigtails. This is reported by the Baza Telegram channel.
Director Irina Kotova, a former police colonel, saw shades of the Ukrainian flag in the ribbons on the pigtails, and the logo of the Azov Battalion in the Yin-Yang symbol that was shaved under them.
The family had to communicate with the juvenile inspector. As it turned out, the ribbons were not yellow, but light green. The girl plays football and before the competition she made her hair with ribbons in the colors of her sports uniform.
The police and the inspector no longer have claims against the family, although before the conversation with the parents there was a question of initiating an administrative case.
Children's Ombudsman in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug Lyudmila Nizamova, in a conversation with the local newspaper Vestnik, said that the education committee should have a conversation with the director and find out why she did not talk to the girl's parents, but immediately wrote an appeal to the police.
“The situation, which, in my opinion, had to be solved by pedagogical methods, but for some reason they tried to resolve it by administrative and legal ones, by filing an application with the internal affairs bodies,” Nizamova said.
Vice Speaker of the State Duma Vladislav Davankov proposed to react more calmly to the blue and yellow colors, noting that "patriotic vigilance reaches the point of absurdity." In his Telegram channel, he called on the Ministry of Internal Affairs to publicly explain that the combination of yellow and blue colors is not a basis for opening cases and detention.
“If we continue in this spirit, then soon they will start shooting titmouse in Russia, hundreds of brands will have to be closed for yellow and blue logos and at least one political party, the Liberal Democratic Party, will be banned. Obviously, this path is absurd,” wrote Davankov.
In May 2022, police officers stopped a girl in the Moscow metro for wearing clothes in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Whether any protocol was drawn up is unknown.
In March, a 40-year-old man wearing blue and yellow sneakers was detained in central Moscow on charges of participating in an unsanctioned rally. As his lawyer Ilya Utkin told The Insider, the police considered them "a means of agitation." The court imposed a fine of 10,000 rubles on him.