Published and transcribed by the independent Russian media in exile Media PortRita Flores’ interview delivers a story worthy of dystopian fiction – at least, for the French reader. The former member of the Moscow feminist punk collective Pussy Riot says she was forcibly recruited by agents of the FSB, Russia’s intelligence and internal security service, to provide information on the Russian artistic and activist community.
According to his testimony, a search took place at his home on February 17, 2023, during which his computer and phone were seized. She was then allegedly taken to the office of the Interdistrict Investigation Service in Meschansky (Moscow), a territorial unit of the Russian Investigative Committee, where officers allegedly threatened and humiliated her. His disappearance was covered at the time by the independent Russian media Meduza. Under pressure, Rita Flores – real name Margarita Konovalova – said she agreed to work for the FSB under the code name “Harley”, signing a confidentiality agreement.
During the following three years, she met more or less regularly with her handling officer, “Ivan”, who assigned her missions. According to his account, the instructions received consisted mainly of collecting information on artists and activists which, ultimately, was to serve as a pretext for their arrest by the FSB, or to allow agents to blackmail them. Rita Flores would have received regular payments from the FSB, of between 30,000 and 50,000 Russian rubles (between 300 and 500 euros, approximately).
In the interview, Rita Flores presents the work done at the FSB as a succession of attempts to circumvent the missions entrusted to it. The young woman would have been sent to exhibitions or other cultural events to identify artists to denounce: “Each time, I came back empty-handed. They were angry with me”.
She would thus have been responsible for collecting compromising information on Philippe Kozlov, a street artist operating under the pseudonym “Philippenzo” having left Russia in 2023 due to threats of criminal prosecution against him. “I told them completely stupid and useless things: where he goes after the workshop, where he eats noodles, what kind of beer he drinks”assures Rita Flores.
The ex-Pussy Riot also claims that she managed to persuade Pavel Krisevich, artist and political opponent, to leave Russia, while her mission was to spy on him and facilitate his arrest. Detained in a penal colony near Saint Petersburg until 2025, the artist would have to face a new criminal trial if he did not leave Russia, explains Rita Flores, who is delighted to have succeeded in making him leave the country in December 2025.
But in an interview given two days later to the independent Russian media Meduza, Pavel Krisevich gave another version of the facts. Without entirely denying the story of the one he describes as a “old friend”he raises “exaggerations”particularly regarding the argument she allegedly provoked between them to make him understand to flee Russia: “this part of the interview seems a little strange to me”he confided, and to admit “maybe there were clues that suggested I should leave”.
The activist insists that he decided to leave following direct threats from FSB officers. His description of the intimidation and denigration practices of Russian intelligence services, however, appears to coincide with that of Flores. Krisevich also returned to an element, omitted by Rita Flores: she was allegedly insistent in advising him to contact Marat Gelman, a gallery owner targeted by criminal proceedings for “apology of terrorism”. A detail which, in retrospect, seemed suspicious to him, given the recent revelations of his colleague. “We will probably never know how things turned out”he added.
Still according to Rita Flores, the FSB officers gave her the mission of helping them to instigate the murder of the activist artist Pyotr Verzilov, former member of the Russian collective Voïna, close to Pussy Riot, currently a member of the Ukrainian forces. More precisely, Flores would have been responsible for using her relationship with Verzilov, her former companion, to lure him to Serbia and arrange to meet him in a café, where FSB agents would have been waiting for him. Between 1 and 3 million Russian rubles were allegedly offered to him in exchange for his help.
Following the proposal, Flores allegedly contacted her lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov to help her convince the officers to delay the mission, which would have given her time to inform her partner of the situation and marry him. The marriage would have dissuaded the FSB from continuing the mission, for fear of arousing suspicion among her husband. Verzilov reacted on
Dressed in colorful balaclavas and dresses, Pussy Riot have been active since 2011. The collective became known by organizing performances and artistic actions in Moscow, often illegal, aimed at promoting women’s rights in Russia, following a line which from the start clearly asserted itself in opposition to Vladimir Putin. Three of them were sentenced on August 17, 2012 to two years of imprisonment in a penal colony for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”following a concert deemed profane organized in an Orthodox church. Since leaving Russia in mid-August, Rita Flores has been living in exile in a location that has not been made public.
