Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova is in seriously hot water with Russian authorities, not for the first time.
Following an investigation, Russia’s Investigative Committee this week indicted the punk artist and activist for violating the so-called “foreign agent law” and added her to the federal wanted list, reps for Pussy Riot explain.
Tolokonnikova had been accused of flouting Part 2 of Article 330.1 of the national criminal code, which carries punishment of up to 2 years’ prison for “foreign agents” on a range of offenses, including those who failed to register or didn’t label social media posts.
The Krasnoyarsk Krai Court twice found her guilty in 2024 of administrative offenses for violating foreign agent regulations, and later, while outside Russia, she is said to have distributed materials in a messaging platform without labeling them as being produced by a foreign agent.
Russia’s Ministry of Justice designated Tolokonnikova a “foreign agent” on Dec. 30, 2021.
Attention turns to Tolokonnikova after Pussy Riot, the masked Russian punk feminist collective, staged a protest at the Manhattan offices of tech company Ubiquiti on Friday, March 27 over their claims that the company’s Wi-Fi equipment is being used by Russian soldiers in their ongoing war against Ukraine.
Tolokonnikova later posted a video statement in which she said that the Russian military is allegedly using Ubiquiti to communicate with front line troops. In the clip, she talks in voice-over about the company she claims “powers Russian war crimes” over footage of three PR members in all black wearing pink balaclavas with x’d out eyes holding a sign that features that same provocative phrase.
When “Starlink was turned off, Russian guys went crazy,” she said in reference to ex-DOGE boss Elon Musk’s move in February to cut Russian forces’ access to his Starlink satellite service in order to give Ukrainian fighters an edge in the grinding four-year war. She quipped that the Russian fighters scrambled for an alternative, suggesting they were considering using doves to carry their messages.
As previously reported, members of Pussy Riot gathered outside Ubiquiti’s Manhattan offices to protest and deliver their list of demands. Hours after their action, they wrote that the company appeared to respond in the form of a message from payment processing partner Square, which informed PR that its Square account had been deactivated.
Pussy Riot have long been vocal critics of Russia’s leadership. Their 2012 “A Punk Prayer” protest made global headlines and resulted in members Tolokonnikova — who was added to Russia’s most wanted list in 2023 — and Maria Alyokhina being briefly imprisoned.
They’ve since staged a number of other protests, including at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia, as well as a field invasion during the 2018 World Cup Finals and a “celebration” of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 68th birthday in October 2020 in which they hoisted rainbow LGBTQ pride flags outside government buildings in Moscow in protest of the Russian government’s continued denial of LGBTQ rights. In 2023, the collective received the Woody Guthrie prize for their fight for freedom and justice.
More recently, Nadya has spoken up about Russia’s return to the Venice Biennale, one of the oldest, largest, and most prestigious cultural institutions in Europe, and has created an online petition with thousands of other artists. In an open letter to Biennale President Pietroangelo Buttafuoco, she writes: “Accommodating official state representation while curating ‘dissent’ risks turning the latter into a performative gesture and virtue-signaling rather than a position…You claim to care about censorship, Pussy Riot is so censored in Russia that we were deemed ‘an extremist organization’ – simply visiting our website or liking images of our art is criminalized.”
Several countries, including the United States, have criticized the inclusion of Russia in the prestigious exhibition, while the European Commission has warned organizers it will suspend €2 million in support if the festival goes ahead with Russia among its exhibitors. Russia withdrew from Venice Biennale ahead of its 59th edition in 2022, just ahead of its invasion of Ukraine.
Tolokonnikova’s latest indictment “will not stop her from protesting Russia’s return to Venice Biennale,” explains a rep in a message to Billboard.