Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova indicted and added to Russia’s wanted list

Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova has been added to Russia’s federal wanted list.

• READ MORE: Who are Pussy Riot? A guide to the Russian activist group who crashed the World Cup Final

The punk activist and artist – who was named a “foreign agent” by Russia’s Ministry of Justice in 2021 – has been indicted following an investigation carried out by the country’s Investigative Committee this week.

Reps for the band say the committee have accused Tolokonnikova of violating Russia’s “foreign agent law” and added her to the federal wanted list, per Billboard.

Tolokonnikova is accused of flouting Part 2 of Article 330.1 of the national criminal code, which carries a punishment of up to 2 years’ prison for “foreign agents” on a range of offences, including those who failed to register or didn’t label social media posts.

In 2024, she was found guilty twice for administrative offences for violating foreign agent regulations by the Krasnoyarsk Krai Court and later, while outside Russia, she is said to have distributed materials on a messaging platform without labelling them as being produced by a foreign agent.

It comes weeks after Pussy Riot staged a protest outside US tech company Ubiquiti’s Manhattan headquarters for “powering Russian war crimes”.

Pussy Riot first gained notoriety for their 2012 protest piece, ‘A Punk Prayer’, which was a response to accusations of electoral fraud and rigging in Putin’s re-election. The protest resulted in the imprisonment of members Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova, though they were released early in light of an amnesty bill passed shortly before Russia hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Since then, members of the collective have staged multiple protests, including a performance at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, a pitch invasion during the 2018 World Cup Finals, and at the Indiana State Capitol, in response to the US Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022. The same year, Tolokonnikova released the debut Pussy Riot mixtape ‘Matriarchy Now’.

In 2023, the Pussy Riot collective was awarded the Woody Guthrie Prize. Tolokonnikova has also teamed up with various artists over the last few years, including a single with Avenged Sevenfold, a collaboration with Nova Twins, and a whole mixtape executive produced by Tove Lo, which featured guest spots from Salem Ilese, Big Freedia, Hudson Mohawke and iLoveMakonnen.

A scripted television series about Pussy Riot was also announced in 2023 by Tolokonnikova, who expressed her ambition with the show to “inspire a new generation of rebels”.