Since the Russian actress and musician activist, Maria Alyokhina, 33, fled her country last April, she has been mastering fundraising in several ways to help Ukraine.
The Pussy Riot star describes Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with the newspaperThe Guardian“The new Hitler”, criticizing the West, which has not moved strongly in the eight years, since her country occupied the Ukrainian Crimea in 2014.
“There were minor sanctions yes, but countries continued to do business with Russian companies, and Germany was selling arms to the Putin regime and evading the embargo,” she says.
“Had there been severe sanctions following the occupation of Crimea and the subsequent invasion of Donbass, I am sure we would not have reached the chaos we are in today,” she added.
Ilyukhina and her fellow activists called for a complete ban in 2014 and was among many arrested several times over their protests.
She harshly criticized the West’s delay in cutting off business with Russia until following the invasion of Ukraine “I heard a lot of discussion in the West, that it’s hard and painful to stop buying oil and gas, well, you had 8 years. Now it’s possible in one month.”
“Politicians may have been afraid of their voters protesting the coldness of their homes, and now, Ukrainians have no homes at all,” she added.
Maria Alyokhina was arrested with her colleague Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and others in 2012 while performing a song criticizing Putin and the Russian Church’s support for him.
The lyrics of the song ask the Virgin Mary to deliver them from him.
The security forces raided the place seconds following the start of the song, to arrest all members of Pussy Riot.
Alyokhina and Nadezhda were sentenced in August of 2012 to two years in a concentration camp, following they refused to apologize, in exchange for their earlier release.
Since that incident, Pussy Riot has turned into a symbol of protest once morest the regime of President Putin, who returned to the presidency in 2012 for a third term marred by widespread corruption and violation of freedoms, according to his opponents.
The two artists were released in December 2013, but were arrested dozens of times following that, for deceptive reasons and accusations, such as “violating sanitary and epidemiological rules”, postings on social media, and participating in a demonstration in support of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Aleukhina defines in harsh terms what this combination of inertia and self-interest has created for the West.
“Money from the West is the basis of our imprisonment, our poisoning, our political assassinations, and the reason for the ongoing war in Ukraine. I really want people to understand this and stop it,” she said.
Prior to Alyokhina’s departure from Russia, the authorities had issued a sentence once morest Maria Alyokhina, last September, imposing “restrictions” on the activist’s freedom, including judicial surveillance, a night curfew, and a one-year ban on leaving Moscow, for calling for a demonstration once morest the arrest of the Russian oppositionist Alexei. Navalny.
But following the Russian judiciary tightened these procedures by replacing her with a prison sentence, during a hearing that Alyokhina did not attend, she was able to leave Russia following deceiving the police by disguising herself as a food delivery worker and leaving her mobile phone to prevent the police from tracking her, then she succeeded in the border to neighboring Belarus, then To Lithuania, following several attempts.
Since she managed to escape, Olikhina has gone on a lot of adventures, raising money in any way, whether through concerts or theatrical performances, selling merchandise like T-shirts and even digital collectibles at NFT summer to help the Ukrainians.
“I just want to help Ukraine and that’s it,” she said, noting that she earned ten thousand euros selling only T-shirts, and sent the money to a Ukrainian children’s hospital.
Alyokhina asserts that “Putin must be tried as a war criminal, and without an international trial for Putin, Russia cannot return to what it was.”
“Without understanding that Putin is a terrorist and a criminal,” she explains, “there will be more blood, more bodies, and more raped women.”
