Russian activist Pyotr Verzilov is under police protection in Berlin after suffering an apparent poisoning attack in Moscow. Speaking to DW, Verzilov says he had been targeted over his investigative work.
Image: DW/Vladimir Esipov
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DW: How do you feel right now?
Pyotr Verzilov: Compared with last week, when I was still completely unconscious and had no understanding what was happening, there has obviously been a huge leap toward feeling better. I am still not completely well. I probably would not run a marathon or something like that. I still have problems with my eyesight — very weird problems that basically don't allow me to read with glasses or focus my eyes. So yes, some things are still there.
But, essentially, this nerve agent — as everyone who is thinking about it has speculated — most likely had a very strong short-term effect and then it basically died out. And this is what we saw in my condition.
Your life is obviously in danger. Are you afraid of returning to Russia?
No, I am definitely not afraid. I feel that Russia needs the greatest people — we are not afraid of anything. If in Berlin it might make sense to walk with bodyguards, in Moscow it doesn't make any sense because the people who want to do something bad to you, they can still do it. So if you are involved in opposition politics in Russia you just have to be ready for any course of action.
Are you under police protection right now?
Yes. If I go out or meet someone outside they will escort me.
What do you believe was the main reason for your poisoning?
I believe the main reason was to give a warning sign that we should not dive too much into uncovering what has happened in Africa [Editor's note: Three Russian journalists were killed under unclear circumstances while working in the Central African Republic in July] and the agency that knows how to work with poisons ... it's kind of their language now. So I believe the African situation is more or less the main reason.
It could be, but at the same time we all saw how the Moscow police were struggling over the past two months to write some sort of a new protocol in order for us to get another 15, 30 days in jail, and they were not able to do that. Because the local court in Moscow just kept sending the papers back, saying [they] were not going to work with this.
You haven't published an investigation of the Russian journalists killed in the Central African Republic. You said there is new information about this incident. When do you want to publish your findings?
This really depends on what we will be doing at stage two [of the investigation], and if we will be doing stage two at all because the publication of some sort of information right now might make the investigation harder.
Would you like to stay in Berlin? With all the creative freedom here you can do a lot of artistic activism...
Artistic activism is particularly important in Russia, because of the specifics of our political and social reality. Here (in Germany) there are billions of ways to get involved in politics, to change something, to express yourself artistically. Our activism comes from the lack of possibilities for self-expression — in the West there are a lot of them.
Pyotr Verzilov is an activist with the Russian protest group Pussy Riot. He fell ill in Moscow two weeks ago and was flown to Germany for urgent treatment. He was released from a hospital in Berlin on Wednesday.
Riot Days: Pussy Riot's acts of defiance
We take a look back at Russian punk provocateurs Pussy Riot and their remarkable defiance of political persecution and nationalist ideology in Russia.
Image: picture alliance / dpa
Starting a riot
All-girl Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot created an international storm in 2012 with a guerrilla performance in Moscow's main cathedral that called for the Virgin Mary to protect Russia against Vladimir Putin, who was elected to a new term as Russia's president a few days later. The protest attracted worldwide attention, and three members of the group were arrested.
Image: picture alliance / dpa
State censorship
During the ensuing court hearing in Moscow in August 2012, Pussy Riot members Nadya Tolokonnikova (right), Maria Alyokhina (center) and Yekaterina Samutsevich (left) could be seen in a glass-walled cage. Support for the Pussy Riot activists came from all over the world.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
Cause celebre
Pussy Riot's iconic colorful balaclava face masks allowed supporters near and far to become "members of the band." Here, a protester is arrested during a demonstration in support of Pussy Riot in 2012 in front of the Russian consulate in New York on the day a Russian judge found three members of the provocative punk band guilty of hooliganism.
Image: AP
No way out
Pussy Riot band member Nadya Tolokonnikova looks out from a holding cell during a court hearing in April 2013. Tolokonnikova was appealing her conviction for "hooliganism motivated by religious hate," for which she was serving two years in a remote prison. Many international stars such as Madonna called for the Pussy Riot members' release.
Image: Reuters
Back under attack
After their release from prison under an amnesty in late 2013, Pussy Riot were soon protesting again, this time at the Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi. While they were preparing to sing the song "Putin Will Teach You to Love Your Motherland," a spoof on state nationalism, a Cossack militiaman who was armed with a whip attacked band member Nadya Tolokonnikova and a photographer.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo
Fight the power
Masked Pussy Rot members leave a police station in Adler during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in February 2014. Two members of the band, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, were detained after they were wrongfully suspected of stealing a handbag from their hotel.
Image: Reuters
Getting the word out
By 2015, Moscow-based Maria Alyokhina (left) and Nadya Tolokonnikova increasingly traveled Europe to continue campaigning against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Here they answer questions from the audience at the 23rd Sziget (Island) Festival on Shipyard Island in Budapest, Hungary, on August 14, 2015.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. Mohai
Part of Banksy's world
Here, in September 2015, Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina performed at the closing party of the "Dismaland" project by graffiti artist Banksy. The street artist described his subversive, pop-up exhibition at the derelict seafront Tropicana lido in the UK as a "bemusement park."
Image: Getty Images/J.Dyson
How to start a revolution
Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova wrote her own guide to individual freedom in the face of totalitarianism, "How to Start a Revolution," which was published in 2016. She soon toured the book around the world, stopping in Berlin and at the Lit.Cologne literary festival (above).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Vennenbernd
Provoking the corrupt security state
In 2016, Pussy Riot were again indulging in political provocation at home, releasing a film clip to their new protest song "Chaika" that mocks corrupt and violent Russian security agencies – under whom the jailed band members faced "endless humiliations" – after it was revealed that the country's chief prosecutor, Yuri Chaika, had links to the local mafia.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/D.Sinyakov
Trump meets Putin
Pussy Riot's criticism not only targets Russian authorities: At this performance in a San Francisco theater in February, a caricature of Donald Trump accompanied Vladimir Putin on stage. During the event, they discussed the current state of human rights in Russia, and how LGBT individuals and political activists in prison are affected.
Image: Getty Images/T.Mosenfelder
The struggle continues
On August 6, 2017, Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Olga Borisova held flares and a banner on a bridge near a prison in Yakutsk, Russia to protest the jailing of film director Oleg Sentsov. He was arrested in Crimea – which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 – and convicted by a Russian military court of conspiracy to commit terror attacks. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Zona.media
Live in Germany
In September 2017, the group performed their "feminist punk manifesto" in Germany at Frankfurt's Künstlerhaus Mousonturm. Titled "Riot Days," the concert is based on band member Maria Alyokhina's eponymous book that describes her co-founding of Pussy Riot in 2011 with Nadya Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B.Roessler
Shutting down Trump Tower
In October 2017, the group stormed Trump Tower in New York City to voice opposition to Putin and Trump and the incarceration of political prisoners. Wearing their famous balaclavas, they held up a banner once again urging the release of Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov. Police closed the 58-story skyscraper for a half hour.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Szenes
Protest on the pitch
Dressed as police officers, members of the collective invaded the pitch during the World Cup final in Russia, interrupting the game. According to the group, the goals of the protest were for the Russian authorities to free all political prisoners, stop illegal arrests at public rallies and allow political competition in the country. The members were sentenced to 15 days of jail time.
Image: Reuters/D. Staples
A suspected poisoning
One of the Pussy Riot activists at the FIFA World Cup protest was Pyotr Verzilov, who is also a publisher at MediaZona, an online news site that focuses on human rights violations in Russia's penal system. In September 2018, the dissident experienced symptoms of poisoning. He was sent to Berlin for treatment and was placed under police protection. He recovered.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Cinema for Peace Foundation
