Pussy Riot member describes three years as FSB informant before fleeing Russia

For three years, a young Russian artist navigated the shadow world between coercion and conscience, compelled by threats against her family to serve as an informant for the FSB while quietly working to protect those she was meant to betray. Rita Flores, a former member of Pussy Riot, has now left Russia and spoken publicly about her recruitment, her resistance, and the plot she was asked to facilitate against a fellow activist — a confession she offers not as absolution, but as a lantern for others still trapped in the same darkness. Her story illuminates the machinery by which authoritarian s