Pussy Riot on what to do if you’re detained amid mass Russian protests

On Saturday (January 23), more than 3,000 people were detained by Russian police, amid protests in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Tens of thousands are estimated to have attended the demonstrations, defying a heavy police presence in one of the biggest nationwide rallies against the Kremlin in recent years.

Besides subzero temperatures, protesters faced beatings from riot police as they chanted in Moscow’s Pushkin Square and marched to the jail where Navalny was being held. According to the independent rally-monitoring organisation OVD Info, the protests spanned 111 cities and various time zones across the country. 1,200, the NGO says, were arrested in the capital alone.

Supporters of Navalny, one of the most prominent critics of President Vladimir Putin, called for the demonstrations following his arrest last Sunday. Returning from Berlin, where he had recovered from a near-fatal nerve agent attack, he was taken in at passport control and charged with parole violation. Russian authorities are seeking a years-long jail term, according to Bloomberg. In a statement from jail – shared via the Moscow Times – Navalny says that the attempts to jail him are politically motivated, as well as preemptively ruling out his suicide.

People have also moved online to advocate Navalny’s release and boost awareness of IRL demonstrations. Footage shared widely on social media following Saturday’s protest shows activists pelting Russian riot police and vehicles with snowballs.

Viral TikTok videos, meanwhile, show supporters practicing their American accents, learning phrases like “I’m gonna call my lawyer!” in an attempt to avoid arrest. (Last year, a viral protest video seemingly showed Russian police allowing an American to walk free.) The BBC reports that Russia's official media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has demanded that TikTok take down any information “encouraging minors to act illegally”, threatening large fines.

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Ahead of this weekend’s protests, Pussy Riot also published a video on what to do if you’re detained at a Russian demonstration (since translated into English). “Detention is an unpleasant experience,” says the punk and protest group’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, adding that it’s often illegal in the case of political activists. “If you know how to behave when you’re arrested,” she adds, “it might not end up being such a traumatic experience.”

“I am not a lawyer, nor am I an expert, but I have a lot of first-hand experience.” In 2012, Tolokonnikova was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment alongside Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”. She was also involved in organising the 2018 World Cup protest that saw the group charged with “the organisation and holding of public events without prior written notice”.

In the wake of Saturday’s protests, Pussy Riot activists Masha Alekhina, Lusya Stein and Victoria Narakhsa were reportedly detained, facing up to 15 days of jail time. Navalny’s wife, Yulia, was also briefly held at a rally, posting to Instagram from a police van.

In the last year alone, other Pussy Riot activists have been arrested several times, for anti-police brutality protests, filming a parody of Moscow’s coronavirus response, and flying Pride flags outside government buildings.

Despite this weekend’s arrests, Navalny’s supporters have claimed their demonstrations a victory, and vowed to continue voicing their opposition next weekend. Ahead of the planned protests, watch Pussy Riot’s guide on what to do if you’re detained below, or revisit the group’s anti-surveillance make-up tutorial, directed by Tolokonnikova.