One of the members of the Russian protest group Pussy Riot, Maria Aliokinaexplained on Wednesday that she had been able to leave Russia after fooling the police by disguising herself as a food delivery girl.
The activist joins the thousands of Russians who have left the country since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine on February 24.
In September, Alyokhina was sentenced to one year of “restrictions” on her freedom (including judicial control, a night curfew, a ban on leaving Moscow) for calling a demonstration against the arrest of Russia’s leading opposition figure Alexei Navalni.
In April, the Russian justice toughened the measures against Alyokhina, replacing them with a prison sentence, in a hearing he did not attend.
In an interview with the New York TimesThe 33-year-old activist said on Wednesday that she had managed to get out of Moscow disguised as a food delivery girl, leaving behind her mobile phone to avoid being tracked down by police.
He then crossed the border into Belarus and a week later was able to cross into Lithuania after several attempts, he explained in the interview.
“I was glad I got it, because it was a big and unpredictable ‘goodbye kiss’ for the Russian authorities,” he told the New York Times.
Her partner Lucy Shtein, also a member of Pussy Riot, posted a photo on Twitter of Maria Alyokhina in a green uniform from the Delivery Club company and with a bag of food on her back.
Alyokhina “has not fled Russia, she has gone on tour,” starting with a May 12 concert in Berlin to raise funds for Ukraine, Shtein said on Twitter.
Maria Alyokhina has already served a two-year prison sentence for performing a “punk prayer” in Russia’s main church – Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior – in 2012.
