Pussy Riot member Rita Flores (Margarita Konovalova) has vanished after her Moscow apartment was searched, another Pussy Riot Olga Borisova told Novaya Gazeta Europe.
According to Borisova, Flores told her lawyer Daniil Bergman in the morning that her Moscow flat was searched, she was detained and was taken to a police station. Moreover, her phone was being taken away. It is not clear what prompted the detention.
Rita Flores has been found at her place, Russia’s human rights project OVD-Info reports, citing her lawyer Daniil Bergman. According to him, the activist was there the entire time after the search at her place, however, the police agents took her phone and sent a fake text from her name about her having been taken to a police station.
Photo: Rita Flores / Instagram
The lawyer arrived at the address but police agents told him that they had no detainees. The phone number which Rita used to inform Bergman about her whereabouts later was unavailable because the lawyer’s number was blocked. Pussy Riot members do not know where Flores currently is.
On 8 February, Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency reported that a criminal case had been opened against Pussy Riot member Lyusya Shteyn for “fakes” about the Russian army. According to a RIA Novosti source, Shteyn tweeted a comment on 27 March 2022. In the comment, “she published deliberately false information disguised as a credible report about the Russian Armed Forces committing war crimes”.
Earlier, Mash reported that Shteyn was facing a criminal case.
