Nadya Tolokonnikova, Pussy Riot, on Russia’s Invasion in Ukraine

Ten years ago, five Pussy Riot members donned colorful balaclavas to perform in a Moscow cathedral. a raucous “Punk Prayer”Mother Mary, plead with her “drive away” Russian President Vladimir Putin. Three Rioters were convicted and arrested “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred,”They were sentenced to two year imprisonment, which they managed to survive in inhumane conditions.

Saturday night was a great night for Nadya Tolokonnikova. At the New York City venue Terminal 5, she performed clubby electropop music with a sultry, S&M flair and, once again, spoke out against the man who, improbably, 10 years later, is still Russia’s president. “I hate war,”She told the audience. “I love peace. I support Ukraine. Fuck Putin. I hope he dies soon.”

Tolokonnikova claims that she felt extremely distraught in the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After Pussy Riot’s set, she says backstage that when she tried to sit for an interview earlier in the day she broke into tears three times. Some of her friends in Russia are in jail for protesting the invasion, while simultaneously she’s received messages from friends in Ukraine that speak to the country’s resilience and give her hope. She had originally hoped to perform a duet tonight with headliner Marina on the latter’s recent single “Purge the Poison,”Tolokonnikova opted to not because she is too overwhelmed.

She has been focusing her efforts on UkraineDAO, a cryptocurrency fundraiser that she claims sends money directly to the wallets and accounts of Ukrainian citizens through the charity. Rejoice!. Within 24 hours of launching, the endeavor raised $3 million and sold NFTs for the Ukrainian flag.

Even though she was exhausted, she continued with her set. A mix of Pussy Rit songs was played on her laptop. “Police State,” “Panic Attack,”Unreleased song: “Hate-Fuck,”Tolokonnikova was praised by the crowd. She sang along, and waved a red Bullwhip at two balaclava-wearing twerkers. If the crowd didn’t know what to expect from a Pussy Riot show, she won them over by adding in Europop like t.A.T.u.’s “Not Gonna Get Us” and a round of Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You.” It was a party — with politics.

“I made a deal with myself that it’s OK to continue to do art, especially if your art is inherently political,”She says it, smiling. “I sang today about a lot of stuff like, no police state — a lot of songs are dedicated to police oppression and to dictatorship. I felt like I’m not distracting from the message. I’m actually contributing to anti-war and anti-authoritarianism.”

Tolokonnikova, backstage, reflected on the horrors and hopes that have defined these past days.

It was so difficult to do it right now!
It was very difficult. It was a very difficult day. I said in the beginning that I wish Putin would die, and I didn’t prepare that. It’s just what happened. … I recently spoke with someone about my safety. And I was like, I’m not making it easier for myself to maintain safety [laughs]. This type of shit certainly can make you feel this way.

How did you put UkraineDAO together in such a short time?
In the last year, I’ve been working a lot in crypto and NFTs and we’ve been organizing this thing called Pussyverse. It’s an organization and a movement of people who try to bring more equality to the digital art space. We are collecting large pool of money, and we’re planning to use it to buy art from women and LGBTQ+ artists in the digital space and really raise the [value]They are proud of their art. When we heard that Putin had started war in Ukraine, our first instinct was to do what I knew how. I then decided to join a DAO along with a few friends.

Why did You Choose to Work with Come Back Alive To Help Ukrainians Get Money?
Many of my friends are from Ukraine. Ukrainians are brave, beautiful and fierce. I have a lot of contacts with people from ministers to anarchists and people on the streets to parliament. This gives me a good idea of the best foundations to invest money in. Most Ukrainians who have been in touch with me, and other members of the DAO, agree that Come Back Alive provides the best foundation to make a contribution to. The plus of crypto is it’s borderless, it’s permit-less. Nobody can stop it, even if it’s the war zone. You can access funds if you have internet access.

What are you hearing from your Ukrainian friends this past week?
[Sighs.] No generalizations are accurate, but I’d say that Ukrainians are really positive in the face of invasive disasters. That’s what I saw in 2014 when Putin annexed Crimea, when Putin started war in eastern Ukraine at the time. I know a lot of people who went through war and obviously they’re traumatized but they’re leading their normal lives. The ones I’ve met are extremely resilient. I guess the general attitude is that they’re really angry about Putin. They realize that not all Russians support Putin. This distinction is very important to me, as many Russians protest and take to the streets to regain their freedoms and lives.

I think the most fascinating fact about Ukrainians, and I hear it from them, is that they’re never going to give up. Many Ukrainians claim that Putin wanted them to surrender control of their country. But that didn’t happen. They simply have this spirit. “This is our country. This is our baby.”I believe that President of Ukraine is a great man. [Volodymyr]Zalenskyy is doing very, really well. He said that he refused to leave Kyiv. “We’re just going to defend it.” And they’re achieving amazing results.

There have been marches and demonstrations against Putin’s invasion this week around the world. The protests in Russia stand out. How dangerous is it to stand up to Putin’s regime?
It’s extremely dangerous. Over the last four days, thousands were arrested and were brutally detained. They’re being beaten while it happens.

For example, my daughter, she has a friend who’s 14 years old, but she looks like she’s 10. A cop tried to beat her, then tried to arrest her. Her dad said, “What are you doing? This is my daughter. She’s a child.”She was actually traumatized by the police; she now has a bandage. [Tolokonnikova gestures to her arm]. It’s visible trauma that she had to go to hospital to fix that. Instead of arresting her, they turned to her father and threw him on a concrete floor. He was beaten and is now in custody for a few days. So it’s definitely really challenging.

Protesting in North America comes at a different price. Here, you can protest, but most likely you’re going to be freed in a day or two, but it’s not like that in my country. For participating in protests or tweeting, you can go to prison for up to five years. Two criminal charges have been brought against me in relation to social media posts. [Governmental punishment] doesn’t require to go to protests; you just open our mouths on YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram. They follow our Instagram Stories.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is one reason. The protests suggest it’s not working. Is nationalism widespread?
I’d say imperialism more than nationalism because he wants to restore the Soviet Union. It’s more about empires and building one single nation. That’s what he wants, but I don’t think he’s going to achieve that because people are not hungry for war.

They wanted it more in 2014 than ever. He had really quick success, but that disappeared really quickly when Russians realized that Putin’s foreign military adventures brings more problems to regular Russian citizens because of sanctions. They are suffering. Putin will not suffer. He’s extremely rich. So it’s not going to affect his quality of life, but that’s going to affect a regular person, and I feel really sorry for that.

Second, we don’t have a good look in the world. People look down upon you when you travel with a Russian passport. I travel with a Russian passport, and it’s a pain in the ass. You’re being represented by an aggressor.

What would you prefer to see the E.U. or the American government do regarding the Ukraine invasion? What would you like to see America or the EU do in response to the Ukraine invasion?
To have some courage and do something. It’s obvious that Putin is just a dangerous dictator who has to be stopped. He’s not just dangerous for people in his country, he’s dangerous for peace globally. Many people joke about the invasion that started the Third World War. But it’s a war in Europe. It’s not a joke. It’s full-blown war.

I don’t think governments or the E.U. take it seriously enough. It is not being taken seriously enough by governments or the E.U. I think this war is partly the result of the international reaction to Putin’s annexation of Crimea. He learned that he can easily start war in a neighboring country that is basically a part of Europe and he’s not going to suffer that much from that.

So I think it’s time to do something. I’d say that sanctions should definitely target the Kremlin and not regular Russian citizens because they’re already struggling. But it’s a big surprise for me that a lot of Western countries, I think the world in general, still have business with Putin- and Kremlin-affiliated companies. He represents the oligarchs. I guess it’s good money, but we have to think about ethics at some point.