Pussy Riot members leave Russia to escape ‘continuous arrests’

Last month, Pussy Riot announced that four of its members had been re-arrested just hours after being released from a 15-day stint behind bars. They were being jailed again, the punk collective said, for just “existing”. Since then, Pussy Riot has continued to record a string of jail sentences brought against its members in Moscow.

Most recently, the group has shared news that Rita Flores is being made to return to jail after she recovers from COVID-19, which she caught when she was detained “for no damn reason” last month. “She got infected while arrested,” reads an August 3 tweet from Pussy Riot. “You share your cell with many other people.”

“After she recovers she’s obligated by a court decision to come back to jail and serve six more days.”

Flores was previously sentenced to 20 days in jail in December 2020, for taking part in an anti-police brutality protest alongside her fellow Pussy Riot member Masha Alekhina. She was jailed again for “disobeying a police officer” on July 22, one day after she was detained while travelling to visit Alekhina in a detention centre. 

Alekhina herself was among the activists re-arrested in July — along with Sasha Sofiev, Ann Kuzminikh, and Veronika Nikulshina — and was detained back in January this year for taking part in massive, nationwide protests criticising President Vladimir Putin. “This is a face of Putin’s Russia,” the punk collective wrote at the time. “They clearly have nothing else to do, but to put Pussy Riot in jail over and over again.”

Pussy Riot has also shared news that several of its members left Russia amid the new crackdown. Alexander Sofeyev, Anna Kuzminykh, and Veronika Nikulshina will temporarily remain outside the country, it says, “to take a break from constant arrests for a second”.

A campaign has also been launched to restore the Instagram profile of Kuzminykh, which Pussy Riot claims was deleted after she wrote about death threats she’d received from the Russian alt-right. “Pussy Riot's Ann Kuzminikh just served one month in jail while suffering from fibromyalgia with no medication,” the group writes. “Russian alt-right started a campaign against her, sending death threats. Ann wrote about it on Insta, alt-right complained. Instagram deleted HER profile.”

Russia is set to hold parliamentary elections this September, and many have suggested that the spate of arrests against Pussy Riot activists is part of a broader attempt to silence opposition. Authorities have also restricted access to online sites related to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is currently serving a 2.5 year prison sentence.