Russian Canadian activist Pyotr Verzilov has been added to Russia’s list of “terrorists and extremists” by the country’s state financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring.
Verzilov is a former member of the anti-Kremlin performance art group Pussy Riot and one of the founders of Mediazona, an independent Russian news agency focused on anti-Putinist opposition.
Earlier this year, he was sentenced to more than eight years in jail in absentia under Russia’s wartime censorship laws. He was accused of spreading misinformation about the Russian army.
Verzilov, 37, travelled to Ukraine at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 to shoot a documentary – but he ended up joining the Ukrainian military.
He is also being investigated by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) for treason. Anyone officially branded a terrorist or extremist in the country can have their bank account frozen without a court order.
In 2018, German doctors said it was “highly probable” that Verzilov was poisoned after he fell ill after a court hearing in Moscow. He was flown to Berlin for treatment. His symptoms included amnesia, loss of vision, and not being able to walk or talk. He is one of several Kremlin critics to have been apparently poisoned in murky circumstances, both at home and abroad.
Verzilov also was one of four Pussy Riot members who invaded a pitch dressed in police uniforms during the World Cup final in Moscow the same year. They were protesting against excessive Russian police powers.
On fighting for the Ukrainian army, Verzilov told popular Russian Youtuber Yury Dud: “My case is far from unique. There are a lot of Russian citizens in the Ukrainian army who fight on Ukraine’s side and perform different functions within Ukraine’s various defense forces… My personal history was very well known to the commanders, to the political leadership of Ukraine, so they had no such doubts about me.”
