Pussy Riot activist escaped from Moscow undercover

Maria Alyokhina, a member of the Russian protest music group Pussy Riot, said on Wednesday that she managed to get out of Russia after she tricked the police by claiming to be a food vendor.

Thus, the activist joins the thousands of Russians who have fled the country since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Last September, Maria Alyokhina was sentenced to a year of “restriction” of freedom (judicial control, night curfew, ban on leaving Moscow) for convening a demonstration against the arrest of Russia’s main opponent Alexei Navalny.

At the end of April, Russian justice toughened the measures, replacing them with imprisonment, during a court session, at which Alekhina was not present.

Today in an interview published by The New York TimesMaria Alekhina, 33, said she managed to leave Moscow under the guise of a food vendor and left her mobile phone behind so police couldn’t trace her.

The activist crossed the border with neighboring Belarus, and a week later managed to get to Lithuania.

His partner Lucy Stein, also a member of Pussy Riot, posted a message on social network twitter with a photo of Maria Alekhina in the green uniform of the Delivery Club distributors, with a bag for food delivery on her back.

Alyokhina “didn’t run away from Russia, she’s on tour” starting with a May 12 concert in Berlin to raise money for Ukraine, Chtein added in a tweet.

Lusya Shtein, also sentenced to restraint of liberty in connection with protests against the arrest of Alexei Navalny, left Russia in April.

Longtime Pussy Riot member Maria Alekhina previously served a two-year prison sentence for performing a “punk prayer” at Russia’s main church, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, in 2012.

with LUSA

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