Alyokhina decided to leave Russia after the authorities threatened to send her to a penal colony
Alekhina told The New York Times that although she once refused to leave the country, despite numerous arrests, she still escaped after Russian authorities said they would send her to a penal colony. During her week-long trip, Maria made her way from Russia to Belarus and from there to Lithuania.
“I don't think Russia has a right to exist,” she told an NYT correspondent while already in Lithuania.
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Alekhina has been arrested several times in the last decade for her performances as part of Pussy Riot.
The group became internationally famous in 2012 when it sang the Russian national anthem with an anti-Putin text in the Church of Christ the Savior. Women in ski masks hiding their faces shouted, “Mother Maria, please overthrow Putin.” Alekhine and two other members of the group were found guilty of “hooliganism” and sentenced to two years in prison. will. Since her release last summer, Maria has been arrested six times for her activities.
Another Pussy Riot member, Nadezhda Tolokonikova, who has also been jailed for nearly two years, has been added to Russia's list of “foreign agents.”
Alyokhina told The Times that she hopes to return to Russia, but now she is in Iceland, where she organizes pro-Ukrainian events, including Bjork.
Read also: 2018 World Cup Final: Pussy Riot participants ran to the football field demanding the release of political prisonersPussy Riot is a Russian feminist punk rock band that has been operating on anonymity since 2011 and performs in the form of unauthorized rallies in public places.
In October 2017, members Pussy Riot hung a banner in the lobby of the Trump Tower in New York demanding the release of Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov , convicted in Russia on trumped-up charges.
Recall that in late February 2012 Pussy Riot girls staged a punk prayer service at the Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The video with the speech was posted on the Internet. In August 2012, a court sentenced three of them to two years in a maximum security prison for hooliganism, but all were released early.
