[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2160632134.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tA former member of the protest-art collective Pussy Riot says she was recruited by Russia\u2019s Federal Security Service (FSB) to help spy on the Kremlin\u2019s critics. Rita Flores, whose real name is Margarita Konovalova, sat down in an interview with her lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov posted on the YouTube channel of Port Media<\/em>, an outlet created in July 2024 by a group of exiled Russian journalists.<\/p>\n \n\tIn 2020, she was jailed for taking part in an anti-police brutality protest near the Kremlin with Pussy Riot, clad in their synonymous pink balaclavas. Konovalova says she started working for the FSB in 2023 after intense pressure from the government agency and threats to kill her family. As an agent, she was trained on passing information on artists, anti-war activists and curating a list of contemporary artists in Russia and neighboring countries. Her main duties were to report any works of art that painted Russia in an unforgiving light. \u201cSo, if I see shitty [in the FSB\u2019s opinion] art that insults the Motherland, I have to call and say \u2018lock him up!\u2019 and we start working on it,\u201d said Konovalova.<\/p>\n \n\tWhen Konovalova started working with the FSB, she received a one-off payment of 30,000 Russian Rubles (approximately $350), and it was only in recent months that she started receiving a regular payment on the 15th of every month of 50,000 Russian Rubles (approximately $593). She last received payment in June.<\/p>\n \n\tKonovalova\u2019s FSB handlers had handpicked some of her targets to keep a watchful eye on; they included street artist Philipp Kozlov, otherwise known as Philippenzo; performance artist Pavel Krisevich; and Pyotr Verzilov, Konovalova\u2019s former boyfriend and former publisher of Mediazona and a member of the art groups Voina and Pussy Riot.<\/p>\n \n\tKonovalova said that the information she relayed back to the FSB was always \u201cstupid and pointless things,\u201d such as where Philippenzo goes after his workshop, where he eats noodles, and what kind of beer he drinks. In a meeting she had with the artist in the summer of 2023, Philippenzo revealed to her that he was working on a graffiti mural titled Izrossilovanie<\/em><\/em>, a portmanteau of the Russian words for \u201cRussia\u201d and \u201crape.\u201d She tried to talk him out of it, fearing the consequences. Konovalova\u2019s handler had told her that there were \u201ctwo options: we\u2019ll put him in jail for this, give him a hard time, a proper sentence, no fine or a year will do, it\u2019ll be a normal sentence, or, if you can, you\u2019ll get him out of here as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tPhilippenzo was eventually detained at Domodedovo Airport and sentenced twice before immigrating to Lithuania.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIn Krisevich\u2019s case, Konovalova repeatedly quarreled with the artist and his wife until the couple ultimately escaped Russia in December 2025.<\/p>\n \n\tThe FSB\u2019s primary target was Verzilov. They wanted her to seduce Verzilov into coming to Serbia to meet at a caf\u00e9 filled with FSB officers who would kidnap and kill him. Konovalova was offered 1 to 3 million Russian Rubles (approximately $11,000 to $35,000) for the mission, but she delayed it by confessing everything to her boyfriend and marrying him to stop the operation.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter the interview was published, Konovalova took to Instagram to say she\u2019s been \u201csafe for a week now\u201d and is finally ready to share her story. \u201cA lot happened behind the scenes\u2014things that were excessively dramatic and dark\u2014such as years of prolonged depression, constant and unrelenting derealization, PTSD from being under surveillance (yes, 2020 and 2021 turned out to be a walk in the park by comparison), several suicide attempts, and so much more,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Correction, August 26, 2026: <\/strong>An earlier version of this story misidentified the title of Philippenzo\u2019s mural. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/pussy-riot-member-recruited-russia-fsb-spy-artists-1234795669\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2160632134.jpg?w=1024″] A former member of the protest-art collective Pussy Riot says she was recruited by Russia\u2019s Federal Security Service (FSB) to help spy on the Kremlin\u2019s critics. Rita Flores, whose real name is Margarita Konovalova, sat down in an interview with her lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov posted on the YouTube channel of Port Media, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2113629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2113629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2113629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2113629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2113629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}