Pussy Riot star on Putin’s wanted list warns ‘fame can’t save you’

Olga Borisova (l) and other members of Pussy Riot (r) have repeatedly been targeted by Vladimir Putin’s regime for their activities (Picture: Olga Borisova, Alliance/DPA)

A Pussy Riot member has told of her shock at being added to Russia’s wanted list as she supports a Ukrainian children’s hospital.  

Olga Borisova is reportedly accused of ‘sponsoring terrorism’ as the feminist art collective is again targeted by Vladimir Putin’s regime.  

She and the other members discovered they had been added to the list this week after one was told that her Russian bank account had been frozen.  

Olga, an activist, performance artist and book editor, told Metro.co.uk that she refuses to be ‘paralysed by fear’ as a highly visible Kremlin critic.  

Since leaving Russia after Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, her protest work has included appearing in the collective’s acclaimed, world-touring play, Riot Days. 

‘We are all shocked at finding out that we are wanted by Russia because we learned about it so randomly,’ she said.

Olga Borisova has spoken out against the Kremlin and helped raise funds for a Ukrainian children’s hospital (Picture: Olga Borisova)

‘One of our Riot Days girls, Alina Petrova, received an SMS saying her bank account in Russia was blocked and it has been “arrested”. When we started to check it out we found that all our names are on the wanted list.

‘According to Russian state media, the charge is sponsoring terrorism. 

‘We are sponsoring a children’s hospital, so how can a children’s hospital be a terrorist organisation? Putin’s machine exists on a fuel of repression and fear and this has left us asking where the limits are.’ 

Olga, 30, was arrested multiple times in Russia for her activities with Pussy Riot and now lives in London after arriving in the UK on a global talent visa.

The latest run of the Riot Days tour has taken the play through Europe, raising money for the Okhmatdy Children’s Hospital in Kyiv.

Two adults were killed and more than 32 people, including children, were injured when a Russian missile hit the building on July 8.  

The Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent has become more severe since the all-out attack began, aided by new laws that criminalise criticism of the war. 

The new targeting of Pussy Riot comes weeks after US-Russian woman Ksenia Khavana was jailed for 12 years by a court in Yekaterinburg over a $50 donation to an American charity that helps Ukraine.

Creative people have been included on a wanted list operated by the Russian Federation (Picture: Olga Borisova)

Olga has been added to the list along with fellow collective members Maria Alekhina, Alina Petrova, Diana Burkot and Taso Pletner.

‘If state media is correct about the charge then everyone who is supporting Ukraine, whether it is someone famous in Pussy Riot or someone unknown who is posting poetry on social media, the clear message is if you don’t support Putin and his war then you are basically outlawed,’ she said.  

‘It’s created a vortex because people who have spoken out are having to leave their homes in Russia and are unable to return.  

‘But I feel safe in London and I refuse to be paralysed by fear.’ 

Leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s death in a harsh Siberian penal colony on February 16 this year was an example of the risks dissenters take in speaking up for human rights and democracy.

‘Our biggest mistake was to think that fame can save you,’ Olga said.  

‘When Navalny was killed it was a signal to us that fame will not save you anymore. The times when Putin needed to “save face” in front of the West are long gone. Now he can kill the leader of the opposition in front of the whole world and nothing will happen to him.’ 

Overseas and out of the Kremlin’s immediate reach, Olga and other Pussy Riot members continue to find new forms of protest, including at an art show in London entitled ‘Brainwashing Machine’, which was themed around propaganda in modern Russian. 

Co-founder Nadezhda Tolokonnikova contributed an arresting piece entitled ‘Drink My Blood’, which consisted of a USB stick filled with a red substance suspended in a test tube.  

Olga Borisova has continued her activities with Pussy Riot away from the Kremlin’s reach in London (Picture: Olga Borisova)

The artist was one of the members who took part in the ‘punk prayer’ at Russia’s main cathedral in February 2012 which made global headlines.

‘Her art in the Brainwashed exhibition reflects the way she uses symbols and aesthetics to talk about her pain, her experience in prison to create new meanings,’ Olga said. 

Nadezhda served almost two years in prison after the bandmates were charged with ‘hooliganism on the grounds of religious hatred’ over the protest against the Russian Orthodox church and its links with Putin.

While she and Olga remain free, the exhibition served a reminder that other dissenting voices remain prisoners of Russia’s Kafka-esque system. 

Pussy Riot members clad in balaclavas stage their protest inside Christ The Saviour Cathedral in Moscow (Picture: Alliance/DPA)

‘Many brave and bright people remain behind bars,’ Olga said.  

‘People like Bogdan Ziza, Alexey Gorinov, Maria Ponomarenko, Daniel Kholodny, Artem Kamardin and Darya Kozyreva. Many political prisoners have been tortured either physically or in the way they are being treated.

‘They have done nothing wrong apart from being against Putin’s regime.

‘Some were exchanged for killers and spies who were met by Putin and given the red carpet and flowers in Russia.’ 

The use of trumped up charges and ‘show trials’ in silencing voices such as Navalny’s has echoes of some of the darkest days in Russian history.  

‘The Soviet tradition of show trials has been used to scare the rest of the population against speaking out,’ Olga said.

Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova contributed an arresting piece to an exhibition entitled Drink My Blood (Picture: @brainwashing_es)

‘Self-censorship is now close to how it was in Soviet times; people talk freely in their kitchens but not to random strangers in the street.  

‘It’s hard to make calculations of what will happen when you take part in actions against the regime.

‘Pussy Riot did not know that they would be put in jail and become famous with the whole world supporting them after their first performance in the church. 

‘The first person you can save is yourself, and if you’re true to yourself, it pays off.’ 

The creatives who remain a thorn in Putin’s side are proof that Moscow has not succeeded in crushing all dissent, even when standing up for the truth comes at great personal cost.

‘We have not had any revolution in Russia since 1917, not even a social revolution, because of the strong hand that runs the country,’ Olga said.

‘But many people in Russia are fed up with this, because they have been struck with this strong hand.’  

Although the exhibition finished its run at The Crypt Gallery last weekend, the work represents an ongoing project for many of the artists involved.  

Anastasia Vladychkina, a participant and co-founder of the art group Yav, said: ‘Our responsibility is to signal to people in Russia and beyond that we exist and we disagree with what is happening.’

More Trending

Read More Stories

The vast wanted list operated by the Russian state has been analysed by the independent news outlet Mediazona, which was set up by Tolokonnikova and fellow Pussy Riot co-founder Maria Alyokhina.

As of February this year, 96,752 individuals were sought in connection to criminal cases and another 41,535 as missing persons.

The wanted notices include a head of state, Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister, numerous high-ranking Ukrainian military officials and hundreds of individuals who investigators label as ‘foreign mercenaries’ fighting against the full-blown Russian invasion.

MORE : Putin’s sinister game plan is to ‘rot and degrade’ his way to victory

MORE : British man watches on while wife shouts ‘stop Putin, stop the war’ in first Moscow protest

MORE : ‘I’ll die in prison but I can’t stay silent’: Mum among thousands trying to flee Russia

MORE : The former supermodel helping Russians flee Putin’s ‘biggest mistake ever’

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.