Do we like them?Do we like Nadya Tolokonnikova?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A long record of risking her own freedom for others, and nothing harmful found. We held back from the top marks because the record we could open was thin.
Tolokonnikova co-founded Pussy Riot, the Moscow feminist punk collective that became a global symbol of defiance against Vladimir Putin. The turning point was the 2012 performance in a Moscow cathedral. She was arrested and tried, and went to a penal colony. Years later the European Court of Human Rights found Russia had violated her rights over that arrest and trial.
The Russian state has never let up on her. In December 2025 a Russian court branded Pussy Riot an extremist organisation, and in April 2026 the Investigative Committee indicted her over alleged breaches of the foreign agent law. She lives outside Russia and keeps her location secret for safety reasons. Moscow's pursuit of a protest artist says more about Moscow than about her.
On the harm test, we searched what she has said and done about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants and the planet. We found nothing harmful, and no slide into conspiracy theories or grievance. Her public fights are with Putin's government and with those profiting from its war. The record we could open in full is thin, though, so that is a clean sheet rather than a glowing reference.
The recent chapter is her campaign to keep Russia's state art off the world stage. In May 2026 Pussy Riot and FEMEN protesters in pink balaclavas swarmed Russia's pavilion at the Venice Biennale and released coloured smoke. It is classic Tolokonnikova: loud, theatrical, and aimed at institutions rather than at ordinary people. The Biennale said it had followed its rules. Where you land depends on whether you see art as a place for neutrality or for protest.
The good stuff is real. In 2022 she helped found Ukraine DAO, which sold NFTs of the Ukrainian flag. Reports say it raised several million dollars to support Ukraine, though the totals vary by outlet. She has also taken the Russian opposition's case to European institutions and to Ukrainian media, and she keeps making work in exile. She told the Kyiv Independent she sees herself as an artist first, not a political leader.
The honest gaps are these. Some of the fuller profiles and interviews would not load for us, so we could not open every claim in full. We also found no clear court record against her beyond Russia's own politically charged cases. Within those limits, this is a person who has put her body and freedom on the line for other people's rights, and who keeps doing it.