Pussy Riot 'Will Win This Fight' Despite Sentences Being Upheld

On Wednesday (October 10), the Moscow City Court upheld the sentences of two members of the Russian punk collective Pussy Riot, who were convicted in August on charges of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" following a performance piece in a church that was critical of president Vladimir Putin.

The three-judge panel did suspend the sentence of one Pussy Riot member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, but ruled that two others, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, must serve out the remainder of their two-year sentences, presumably at a Russian prison camp.

Sadly, that decision didn't come as much of a surprise to Tolokonnikova's husband, Pyotr Verzilov, who told last month that he had "low hopes" for a reduced sentence, though he was concerned with what might happen to his wife and her Pussy Riot mates when they were transferred to a camp to serve out their terms.

"After the appeal, basically the next day, the Russian prison system has the right — and they will — to move the girls to some Gulag-style prison camp," he told. "[It's] 500 miles from Moscow, a place in the middle of nowhere, and these things are really scary. It really does feel sometimes like you're in this bad, post-War movie, but for some reason everything is too real."

And though Verzilov has remained resolute during the seven months since Tolokonnikova was first arrested — acting as a spokesperson for the group, meeting with government officials in Washington, D.C., and accepting the LennonOno Grant for Peace on their behalf — he did admit that the time he's been separated from his wife has been difficult for him, and the young daughter the couple have together.

"It has been very emotional. Nadia is ... not only my wife and a loved person, but also she's very close creatively and professionally to me," he said. "We've been doing political art and activism for years — we had this other art action group called Voina — so we've been doing these things for quite a long time. And you miss a person who you can just talk to and discuss things with, so obviously Nadia's arrest created a huge hole in my personal life, and I feel that part of myself has been torn out and locked up in some cage."

And while Verzilov wasn't sure when he or his daughter would get to see Tolokonnikova again, he vowed that, no matter what happened with their appeal, Pussy Riot's fight would go on. Their supporters around the world got a glimpse of this in the form of a 90-second video they released during the MTV Video Music Awards, and there are definitely big plans in the near future. Though two of their members may still be jailed, Pussy Riot will continue to speak out against the Russian government, no matter what the cost.

"The need now is for people to get involved, they have to continue to fight, and the girls' cause should live on," Verzilov said. "The Pussy Riot girls have a lot of creative plans, they're very concrete and serious girls, very powerful, and obviously they're not afraid of anything the Russian government may do to them ... the video you saw portrays their integrity and their willingness to continue their fight, and their certainty that they'll win this fight. And they will win it."