‘My fear was too great’: the Pussy Riot member recruited by Russian spies to inform on fellow activists

Exclusive: In her first media interview since fleeing Russia, Rita Flores describes her three years of being run by the FSB

First came the blackmail and death threats to secure cooperation, then came a series of tasks, each more sinister than the last: to inform on fellow activists, to elicit personal information from protest-minded artists and – eventually – to help with a plot to kidnap and murder a Kremlin enemy.

That is how Rita Flores, a 29-year-old Russian artist, activist and former member of the Pussy Riot collective, described her recruitment and three-year handling by officers from Russia’s FSB security service, a cooperation she only broke when she fled the country last month.

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