The Ministry of Justice, in Moscow’s Tverskoy Court, officially classified the Art Collective Pussy Riot as an extremist organization on December 15, 2025. Judge Maria Moskalenko, who has a history with Pussy Riot,  imprisoned Ilya Yashin, Alexei Navalny and Peter Verzilov. From their cell, Yashin, Navalny and Verzilov held out a sign saying criticizing the judge by saying: “JUDGE MOSKALENKO SERVES SATAN.”

This follows a string of individual charges on members of the collective. Nadya Tolokonnikova was added to the wanted list and arrested in absentia in November 2023. Peter Verzilov was sentenced in absentia in April 2024. Five members, including Maria Alyokhina, Taso Pletner, Olga Borisova, Diana Burkot and Alina Petrova were handed sentences in absentia in September 2025.

“When I was tried for the punk prayer, facing seven years in a labor camp, I told the judge and prosecutors that I was still freer than they would ever be. Today, exiled from my own country, I still feel the same. I can say what I think about putin — that he is an aging sociopath spreading his venom around the world like cancer. In today’s Russia, telling the truth is extremism. So be it – we’re proud extremists, then.” said Tolokonnikova.

Knedlyakovsky adds:“It’s an important event. It’s not every day that an “organization” you remember from its infancy, and to which you devoted so much strength and time, is declared extremist. It can mean only one thing: I was extremely right to choose this path — the path of traditional human values: freedom, love, and equality.”

Photo Credit: Conny Chavez