# Pussy Riot’s Masha on Putin, democracy, and escaping Russia

An episode of [7am](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1461999702), 20 Aug 2026, 17 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/62723a1f-3e96-4fc4-882c-b25e0181da4d/7d3c16d3-6646-4abc-8ce0-b4ac00683c72/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=70f29d90-2a63-48aa-bf8f-b25e0181da70

In 2022, Masha Alyokhina escaped Russia disguised as a food delivery courier. She had spent years being arrested, imprisoned and watched by the state for her work with punk rock protest group Pussy Riot and for speaking out against Vladimir Putin. But Alyokhina says the Russia she fled wasn’t transformed by one dramatic moment. Repression came piece by piece, until fear, censorship and eventually silence became part of everyday life. Now, she says the same pattern is taking hold elsewhere, as people become overwhelmed, disengaged from politics, and complacent that the freedoms they inherited will simply endure. Today, Pussy Riot’s Masha Alyokhina on what Putin’s Russia can teach us about authoritarianism, and why democracy can never be taken for granted. If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support. Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram Guest: Pussy Riot’s Maria (Masha) Alyokhina Photo: AAP Image/Kelly Barnes See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. In
[0:08] Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, Marsha Olia Kena escaped Russia disguised as
[0:12] Speaker 1: a food delivery courier. She had spent years being arrested, imprisoned,
[0:16] Speaker 1: and watched by the state for her work with punk
[0:19] Speaker 1: protest group Pussy Riot and for speaking out against Vladimir Putin.
[0:24] Speaker 1: But Olia Quina says the Russia she fled wasn't transformed
[0:27] Speaker 1: by one dramatic moment. Repression came peace by peace until fear, censorship,
[0:33] Speaker 1: and eventually silence became part of everyday life. Now, she says,
[0:38] Speaker 1: the same Patterman's taking hold elsewhere as people become overwhelmed,
[0:43] Speaker 1: disengaged from politics, and complacent that the freedoms they inherited
[0:47] Speaker 1: will simply endure today. Pussy Rites. Marsha Olia Keina on
[0:51] Speaker 1: what Putin's Russia can teach us about authoritarianism and why
[0:55] Speaker 1: democracy can never be taken for granted. It's Friday, August
[1:03] Speaker 1: twenty one. Marsha Hello and welcome to seven AM. You're
[1:11] Speaker 1: here in Australia right now, and it's been several years
[1:14] Speaker 1: since she left Russia to begin with, could you tell
[1:16] Speaker 1: us about why you left Russia.
[1:19] Speaker 2: I cross the border was Europe twenty eighth of April
[1:24] Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two. I never wanted to leave my country,
[1:28] Speaker 2: but I decided to do that because Puttin started a
[1:33] Speaker 2: full scale war against Ukraine, which is still going for
[1:36] Speaker 2: his year.
[1:38] Speaker 3: It was as sudden as it was brutal and relentless.
[1:42] Speaker 3: Ukrainians woke up to find themselves plunged into the midst
[1:46] Speaker 3: of all explosions and air raid sirens ringing out here
[1:49] Speaker 3: in Kiev and cities across this country as Russia launched
[1:52] Speaker 3: a full scale invasion on multiple fronts. In the early
[1:56] Speaker 3: hours of this morning.
[1:57] Speaker 2: I left Russia to help the country suffering from the
[2:01] Speaker 2: army of my country. I was under the second in
[2:06] Speaker 2: my life criminal case. I had an electronic monitoring bracelet
[2:11] Speaker 2: in my leg. I didn't have a passport because it
[2:15] Speaker 2: was confiscated during the police search. The criminal case was
[2:19] Speaker 2: opened because I wrote an Instagram post and support of
[2:23] Speaker 2: Alixai na Vali, Russian positional leader who was poisoned by
[2:28] Speaker 2: Russian secret services, be arrested in the airport, in prison,
[2:34] Speaker 2: tortured for three years and then killed.
[2:36] Speaker 4: The most prominent opposition leader in Russia, Alexey Navalni, has
[2:41] Speaker 4: died suddenly in prison.
[2:42] Speaker 1: According to the country's prison.
[2:43] Speaker 5: Service, post mortem test by Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and
[2:48] Speaker 5: the Netherlands conclusively found the presence of ibatterden, a deadly neurotoxin.
[2:54] Speaker 2: But then Novo didn't you that it will end like that,
[2:57] Speaker 2: So people decided to support him, even in the most
[3:01] Speaker 2: desperate for the protest time, and went to the streets.
[3:08] Speaker 2: That was the last big protest demonstration in Russia changed
[3:12] Speaker 2: returned to twenty one.
[3:15] Speaker 4: Navali's arrest and imprisonment has unleashed the greatest way of
[3:18] Speaker 4: an anti Putin sentiment in recent years. At least four
[3:23] Speaker 4: thousand people have now been detained rallies across the country.
[3:28] Speaker 2: So I was part of that, and because of this
[3:31] Speaker 2: I had this second criminal case. So when I had
[3:36] Speaker 2: to make a decision, the apartment where I was was
[3:39] Speaker 2: surrounded by political police, so I had to change my
[3:44] Speaker 2: clothes into uniform of deliveriar and used the back door
[3:50] Speaker 2: to the building. Then with the help of my friends
[3:56] Speaker 2: and my close people, I went to the car which
[4:01] Speaker 2: brought me to Belarus, the country which is a close
[4:04] Speaker 2: neighbor to Russia, and from there there were three attempts
[4:09] Speaker 2: to cross the border with European Union, and third one
[4:13] Speaker 2: I made.
[4:19] Speaker 1: Now, I think you're talk in the past about how
[4:21] Speaker 1: a country is not turned into a fascist state over
[4:25] Speaker 1: one day or even one event, that it's a slow, patient,
[4:28] Speaker 1: payful process of getting people used to living a certain way.
[4:32] Speaker 1: Can you tell me about some of the ways you
[4:34] Speaker 1: saw that happen in your own country.
[4:36] Speaker 2: Well, I think third and what happened was me my
[4:39] Speaker 2: two years prison term, because I was quite surprised push
[4:45] Speaker 2: right in first artist activists who were imprisoned for peaceful actions.
[4:50] Speaker 6: It was an active protest by three young women, but
[4:52] Speaker 6: a protest that set them against both church and state
[4:55] Speaker 6: in a system effectively controlled by one man, Vladimir put It.
[4:59] Speaker 6: The three members of the punk rock band Pussy Riot
[5:02] Speaker 6: well unsurprisingly found guilty of hooliganism by a Moscow court today.
[5:06] Speaker 2: But then Putting started to repress more and more people.
[5:11] Speaker 2: There are public showcases when they take people from these
[5:17] Speaker 2: are that circle, create a criminal case and then create
[5:21] Speaker 2: a huge media attention around this criminal case. An imprisoned
[5:25] Speaker 2: person for huge amount of years with a big propaganda coverage.
[5:31] Speaker 2: So it's scarce people from this or that community or circle,
[5:38] Speaker 2: and people start to censor themselves. Also repressive laws like
[5:43] Speaker 2: law about foreign agents or people who just have a
[5:48] Speaker 2: different views start to be named as foreign agents or
[5:53] Speaker 2: unwanted people or organizations. It's legal terms, it's not just
[5:58] Speaker 2: like unpleasant towards.
[6:01] Speaker 7: And if you do not.
[6:02] Speaker 2: Follow the rules of the law when you've been named
[6:07] Speaker 2: as foreign agent, you will be imprisoned. Also political lascinations
[6:13] Speaker 2: murder for example of Barries himself, who was the loudest
[6:18] Speaker 2: voice against the war and against Russian invasion to Ukraine
[6:21] Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, banning first mass demonstrations, then banning single demonstrations,
[6:28] Speaker 2: then ban even any sign of demonstration wherever online or offline,
[6:35] Speaker 2: and punishing people with big prison terms for that.
[6:38] Speaker 1: A lot of our pittance paralyes on convincing people that
[6:41] Speaker 1: resistance is impossible. When Pussy Riot first began, what were
[6:45] Speaker 1: you trying to awaken in other Russians? How do you
[6:48] Speaker 1: break that belief that change will never come?
[6:52] Speaker 2: When Put to the Right started, there was a large
[6:54] Speaker 2: protest movement across Russia, so only in most good there
[6:57] Speaker 2: were one hundred thousand people on streets shouting we are
[7:02] Speaker 2: the power.
[7:07] Speaker 3: It's being called Russia's political awakening, and it's happening on
[7:11] Speaker 3: a massive scale.
[7:13] Speaker 1: For the first time in years. People are out inforced
[7:16] Speaker 1: to challenge the country's leaders.
[7:18] Speaker 2: And I mean first action of Push Right, which I
[7:21] Speaker 2: participated in the square, the Central Square in Moscow loised
[7:26] Speaker 2: the song pushing piece his pants and that was like
[7:29] Speaker 2: an ironical comment to every reality when Pushing was completely
[7:35] Speaker 2: lost and didn't understand what to do because of so
[7:40] Speaker 2: called elections, upcoming collections happening in several months, and people
[7:53] Speaker 2: here and there are protesting against him, which didn't happen before.
[7:59] Speaker 2: So pushr I started as a part of this protest.
[8:12] Speaker 2: And then again we've been in prison for two years,
[8:16] Speaker 2: but putting was basically raping our country for many years.
[8:22] Speaker 2: People start to leave the country, people start to be afraid.
[8:28] Speaker 2: Many people are not alive anymore because of the fact
[8:32] Speaker 2: that they.
[8:32] Speaker 7: Put their lives to this protest.
[8:34] Speaker 2: And I mean I personally tried to just save my
[8:39] Speaker 2: no to this dictatorship as a person as Push Right
[8:44] Speaker 2: members activist.
[8:46] Speaker 1: Are you saying that type of creep into kryptocracy in
[8:51] Speaker 1: other places around the world, for America for instance.
[8:54] Speaker 2: Ah, Yes, Trumps copy pasts in Putting's methods a lot,
[9:00] Speaker 2: and I think he is not hiding that this so
[9:05] Speaker 2: called idea of strong leader man is somehow became very attractive.
[9:17] Speaker 1: Coming up. How the rise of Putin serves as a
[9:20] Speaker 1: warning for democracies everywhere. Marsha, the war against Ukraine has
[9:35] Speaker 1: now been going for more than four years. Tell me
[9:38] Speaker 1: about the impact that you're seeing and hearing that it's
[9:41] Speaker 1: having in Russia. Is it making people in Russia angry
[9:45] Speaker 1: at Putin? Or is it making people in Russia angry
[9:47] Speaker 1: at Ukraine.
[9:48] Speaker 2: Russian people are living under the military censorship. They're not
[9:52] Speaker 2: able to express any opinion. For showing Ukrainian flag, can
[10:00] Speaker 2: get eight years of prison. For calling the ward the war,
[10:03] Speaker 2: you can get the same amount of years in prison,
[10:07] Speaker 2: and people are constantly murdered inside prison.
[10:13] Speaker 7: Even like in this situation.
[10:15] Speaker 2: There are several thousand people who are behind bars, including
[10:20] Speaker 2: on life terms, because of protesting against this war. Because
[10:25] Speaker 2: of this situation, people simply afraid to express anyhow their opinion.
[10:33] Speaker 2: This is quite naive to think that in these conditions,
[10:37] Speaker 2: after two decades of repressions and pudding dictatorship, Russian people
[10:43] Speaker 2: will just out of nowhere, somehow get the weapons and
[10:48] Speaker 2: make a revolution inside the country. There are idle politicians
[10:55] Speaker 2: and political parties in the West for collaborate with current
[11:00] Speaker 2: Putin's regime for many years and feeding this regime and
[11:05] Speaker 2: helping this regime to stay in power and kill Ukrainians.
[11:10] Speaker 7: So from what I know.
[11:13] Speaker 2: And from people who might know and who are still
[11:15] Speaker 2: in the country, yes, people are against this war, but
[11:18] Speaker 2: they are silent because they don't want to die. And
[11:22] Speaker 2: if the question is like, do they associate this war
[11:26] Speaker 2: with current regime or they believe a propaganda? What propaganda
[11:32] Speaker 2: is saying that there are only Nazis in Ukraine? And
[11:36] Speaker 2: this is like in the Second World War when brave
[11:39] Speaker 2: Russian armies fighting Nazis. No, people are not tedious, but
[11:45] Speaker 2: people do have fear, like everywhere.
[11:49] Speaker 1: Do you think that this kleptocracy in Russia will end
[11:53] Speaker 1: when Putin goes or does or are the conditions still
[11:57] Speaker 1: got to remain in Russia for this sort of a
[12:00] Speaker 1: depression to continue on beyond him.
[12:03] Speaker 2: It's personal dictatorship, so he runs this machine. So if
[12:10] Speaker 2: somebody helped both to kind of basically arrest shot him
[12:16] Speaker 2: from the West, definitely little help, but putting the product
[12:21] Speaker 2: of a machine of repressions, Russia being created as Russia
[12:28] Speaker 2: just thirty years ago. Before it was a century of
[12:31] Speaker 2: Soviet Union, the triitarian regime, which was not reflected because
[12:36] Speaker 2: there was no time for freedom of speech and freedom
[12:39] Speaker 2: of expression to reflect about what happened during basically the
[12:45] Speaker 2: whole twenty century, there were more than five million people
[12:52] Speaker 2: killed assan to prison camps for nothing, not only like
[12:58] Speaker 2: for expressing it being for basically that thing. And before
[13:02] Speaker 2: that there was like many centuries of monarch here. So
[13:08] Speaker 2: this is quite heavy legacy and he's a product of
[13:13] Speaker 2: the system.
[13:14] Speaker 1: Marcia, you said that everything is political, or even doing
[13:17] Speaker 1: nothing choosing to do was say nothing is political, and
[13:21] Speaker 1: that there's a choice to be indifferent or apathetic, and
[13:24] Speaker 1: it means that you're essentially voting for the status quo.
[13:28] Speaker 1: I concern that there's a growing apathy across the world
[13:30] Speaker 1: that is allowing authoritarianism to take hold, both in the
[13:35] Speaker 1: East and in the West.
[13:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, you're very right about in difference, growing difference, and
[13:42] Speaker 2: there is reason why people have limits of suffer, let's.
[13:48] Speaker 7: Say, an empathy.
[13:51] Speaker 2: So with current news of cateacter of wars, political rates
[13:59] Speaker 2: like torture. People look quite overwhelmed and they do not
[14:06] Speaker 2: believe that they can change anything. Another thing which is
[14:11] Speaker 2: much deeper, in my opinion, many people in the West
[14:15] Speaker 2: just used to live under democracy and somehow subconsciously they
[14:20] Speaker 2: think that this is something basic, this is something which
[14:24] Speaker 2: exists by default, and.
[14:27] Speaker 7: Things will stay like they are.
[14:29] Speaker 2: But it's basically not true, because things which have been
[14:33] Speaker 2: achieved by previous generations being achieved with the fight, and
[14:40] Speaker 2: many people died for these values and for these freedoms
[14:44] Speaker 2: which their grandchildren like people now in.
[14:46] Speaker 7: The West have.
[14:49] Speaker 2: If people forget that and just chill and comfortable, wealthy
[14:56] Speaker 2: kind of conditions, like they don't care and they don't
[15:00] Speaker 2: think that it's necessary to fight forward, you believe.
[15:07] Speaker 1: Well, Marsha, thank you for speaking with us on seven am.
[15:09] Speaker 1: It's been another thank you you too. Masha Ali Aquina
[15:14] Speaker 1: is the author of Riot Days and Political Girl Life
[15:17] Speaker 1: and Faith in Russia and he's currently in Australia for
[15:20] Speaker 1: the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. She will appear at Killing
[15:23] Speaker 1: Culture at Carriage Works in Sydney this Saturday and in
[15:26] Speaker 1: Pussy Riot's Political Girl at Carriage Works this Sunday. Also
[15:43] Speaker 1: in the Yews. Israel's ambassador to Australia has accused Australia
[15:47] Speaker 1: of harboring a lot of haters of Israel after the
[15:49] Speaker 1: federal government condemned Israel's handling of the investigation into the
[15:53] Speaker 1: killing of Australian aid worker Zombie Francom. Foreign Minister Penny
[15:58] Speaker 1: Wong summoned the ambassador after Israel decided not to pursue
[16:01] Speaker 1: criminal charges over the twenty twenty four strikes that killed
[16:04] Speaker 1: Frankom and six other World Central Kitchen workers traveling in
[16:08] Speaker 1: a humanitarian convoy through Gaza. Australia says serious questions remain
[16:13] Speaker 1: over the three strikes and Israel's refusal to provide key evidence,
[16:18] Speaker 1: with Wong saying the government will consult Franklin's family before
[16:21] Speaker 1: announcing further steps. And former South Australian Chief Justice Chris
[16:27] Speaker 1: Corracas has been appointed to leave Victoria's Row Commission into
[16:30] Speaker 1: Corruption and Serious Misconduct on major government construction projects. The
[16:35] Speaker 1: inquiry will examine alleged organized crime infiltration and whether governments,
[16:39] Speaker 1: contractors and agencies failed in their oversight, with former Premiers
[16:44] Speaker 1: Daniel Andrews and Dissenter Allen among those expected to be
[16:47] Speaker 1: called Victorian Premier Ben Carroll says nothing is off limits,
[16:51] Speaker 1: with the commission due to report by August next year.
[16:55] Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James. Thanks for listening to seven AM. We'll
[16:58] Speaker 1: be back tomorrow

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