Russia Sentences Pussy Riot Activist To 6 Years In Jail

A self-exiled member of the feminist opposition group Pussy Riot, Lyusya Shtein, has been sentenced by a Russian court to six years in prison over her online posts about Russian armed forces.

The court found Shtein guilty of spreading false stories about the Russian army in a March 2022 post on X. The court said that Shtein would serve her sentence once she is extradited back to Russia. According to Russian law, those found guilty of spreading “false information” about Russia’s army can face up to 10 years in prison.

In May 2022, the Russian interior ministry added Shtein to a wanted list for organising a rally against the arrest of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny violating coronavirus safety precautions. Navalny died last month in a Russian prison under suspicious circumstances. His wife has accused Putin of killing her partner.

According to reports, at least 19,855 people have been detained in Russia for expressing anti-war views since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Pussy Riot rose to prominence by donning balaclavas and storming into Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February 2012, where they sang a song against Russian president Vladimir Putin. Many of its members are still in jail.

After the war on Ukraine began, Shtein fled house arrest in Moscow with her girlfriend and fellow Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina in 2022 after her apartment door was marked with a Z-shaped sticker and the inscription, “Collaborator. Do not sell the Motherland.”

The pair wore green clothes that food delivery couriers wear to evade police and sneaked out of the country to reach Lithuania.

The couple finally settled in Iceland, where they were granted citizenship in May 2023.

Prosecutors had requested an eight-and-a-half year sentence for Shtein, who after being convicted joked on X that her mother had bet that the government they would ask for nine years.