Repeat performance. St Petersburg street musician Naoko fined and re‑arrested within hours of completing 13‑day jail sentence

Today, Naoko was prosecuted for performing “Ty Soldat” (“You’re a Soldier”) by the singer Monetochka, who now lives in exile after being branded a “foreign agent”.

Loginova’s defence lawyer highlighted numerous procedural failures. The police protocol omitted the complete song text, specified no performance dates and lacked officers’ signatures. An independent linguistic analysis found no “discrediting” of the armed forces in the lyrics, nor any mention of the Russian army or Russia itself.

Judge Elena Samsonova of the Leninsky District Court rejected these arguments, finding Loginova guilty and imposing the 30,000-rouble fine. A second “discrediting” protocol has earlier been returned to police for amendments.

Naoko now also faces fresh charges for organising mass event and will be held overnight at police station, Mediazona has learnt. Immediately after the court hearing, she was taken back to Police Station No 76 in St Petersburg.

Emergency medics were called to the station; they administered an injection, after which Naoko felt better.

Following this, police drew up a protocol charging her with organising a mass event without authorisation from the authorities, relating to performances of songs on St Petersburg’s streets. Details of the protocol remain unknown.

The same fate befell Alexander Orlov, Stoptime’s guitarist, and drummer Vladislav Leontyev. Two plainclothes officers seized Orlov immediately upon his release on October 27 after serving 12 days in jail; a correspondent for the St Petersburg publication Bumaga witnessed Orlov being forced into an unmarked vehicle whilst shouting that he did not know why he was being detained. At the 76th police station, authorities compiled a new protocol accusing Orlov of “discrediting” the armed forces, though he was not shown the document.

The original charges

The initial prosecution of all three musicians characterised their street performances as unauthorised mass events. The case rested on testimony from a single witness, 28-year-old Mikhail Nikolaev, who claimed that on October 11 a crowd of 70 people had gathered, disrupting “traffic and public order”. The St Petersburg outlet Rotonda noted his name and date of birth match those of MYSLI, a local rap artist.

Loginova insisted the performances were spontaneous and audiences had not obstructed pedestrians. Her defence noted a striking inconsistency: the police report initially cited October 13 as the violation date. When Loginova pointed out she had not performed that day, officers crossed out the date and wrote October 11 in front of her.

At Leontyev’s hearing, the sole witness was the police officer who compiled the report. He acknowledged forgetting to sign it “due to being overworked and inattentive”. The court denied requests to call other witnesses, including the arresting officers and Leontyev’s father, who had volunteered to fight in Ukraine.

Orlov’s hearing was held behind closed doors after bailiffs barred journalists, claiming official working hours had ended.

The looming criminal threat

Whilst Loginova now faces multiple administrative protocols, she does not yet fall within the scope of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code, which criminalises repeat offences and carries possible imprisonment for “public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, the maintenance of international peace and security, including public calls to obstruct the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for said purposes”.

A criminal case can only be initiated after someone with a finalised administrative conviction receives a new protocol. Administrative decisions take effect after 10 days or an unsuccessful appeal. However many charges are filed simultaneously, they all count as “first offences” under the criminal provision.

As one human rights lawyer explained to Mediazona: “They could compile 100 protocols, the courts could impose 100 fines, but they would all be ‘first’ offences in the context of Article 280.3.”

To pursue criminal charges, authorities must compile a new protocol after any existing administrative decision takes legal effect.