The collective said Mama, Don’t Watch TV – a reference to the words of a captured Russian conscript soldier – rails against the Russian leader’s ‘bloodthirsty puppets’ and ‘war criminals’
Pussy Riot have released a new song protesting against the war in Ukraine, Russian censorship and the west “sponsoring” the regime through buying oil and gas from Russia. They have also called for the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, to be tried at an international tribunal.
In a statement, they described Putin’s government as a “terrorist regime” and call him, his officials, generals and propagandists “war criminals”.
They called Мама, не смотри телевизор (Mama, Don’t Watch TV), which comes 10 months after Russia invaded Ukraine: “The music of our anger, indignation, disagreement, a reproachful desperate cry against Putin’s bloodthirsty puppets, led by a real cannibal monster, whose place is in the infinity of fierce hellish flames on the bones of the victims of this terrible war.”
The collective, in this instance represented by Maria Alyokhina, Olga Borisova, Diana Burkot and Taso Pletner, said the chorus is based on the words of a captured Russian conscript soldier who told his mother: “Mum, there are no Nazis here, don’t watch TV.”
“Russian propaganda daily poisons the hearts of people with hatred,” they wrote. “The law on foreign agents is used to silence opposition activists and journalists, to stop the activities of the last independent human rights organisations.”
They outlined the consequences for anyone who defies the regime. “Those who oppose Putin are imprisoned, poisoned with military poisons and killed,” they said, drawing attention to the “tradition of political poisoning” represented by Russia’s Lab X, a poison factory that helped silence the Soviets’ critics and that is believed to play a similar function today.
“Opposition figures of anti-government movements became victims of the ‘experiments’. Putin and the FSB are proud of this “tradition” and continue it: Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Skripal, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Pyotr Verzilov, Alexei Navalny.”
The group said that the money the Kremlin receives from the international community conducting business with Russia is converted “into Ukrainian blood”.
They issued a three-point demand, calling for an embargo on the purchase of Russian oil and gas and the sale of weapons and police ammunition to Russia; the seizure of western bank accounts and property of Russian officials and oligarchs and personal sanctions against them; and an international tribunal to try Putin, employees of Russian state propaganda, army officers and everyone responsible for the genocide of the Ukrainian nation.
They asked the Russian people to ignore propaganda and not to participate in the war, take mobilisation notices or go to the military commissariat.
“Every action against this war is important,” they said.
Alyokhina is one of the three members of Pussy Riot who was sentenced to two years in jail for staging a performance inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February 2012. She and Nadya Tolokonnikova were released in December 2013.
In July, Alyokhina told the Guardian: “We have a new Hitler in Russia.” She outlined how she had left the country in April disguised as a food courier, after repeated arrests. She went to Iceland, where she has been raising money for Ukrainian charities and Russian political prisoners, and staged an exhibition about Pussy Riot’s history, Velvet Revolution, at the Kling & Bang gallery.
She recently toured a Pussy Riot musical, Riot Days. In August, Tolokonnikova released an album as Pussy Riot called Matriarchy Now.