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‘My fear was too great’: the Pussy Riot member recruited by Russian spies to inform on fellow activists

Global Published 19 September 2026, 09:00 · archived 19 Sep 2026

Exclusive: In her first media interview since fleeing Russia, Rita Flores describes her three years of being run by the FSBFirst came the blackmail and death threats to secure cooperation, then came a series of tasks, each more sinister than the last: to inform on fellow activists, to elicit personal information from protest-minded artists and – eventually – to help with a plot to kidnap and murder a Kremlin enemy.That is how Rita Flores, a 29-year-old Russian artist, activist and former member of the Pussy Riot collective, described her recruitment and three-year handling by officers from Rus...

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