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

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. 

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Update 1. October 29

Judge Yekaterina Mezentseva of St Petersburg’s Smolninsky District Court sentenced singer Diana “Naoko” Loginova and guitarist Alexander Orlov of the band Stoptime to 13 days of administrative arrest each, reports a Mediazona correspondent from the courtroom.

Loginova received two separate rulings: 13 days for organising an unsanctioned public event (Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences) and 13 days for petty hooliganism (Article 20.1). 

The court decided the terms would run concurrently, meaning Naoko will spend 13 days in jail in total.

Alexander Orlov, who had proposed to Loginova in court today, was also sentenced to 13 days. Judge Mezentseva took approximately 20 minutes to deliver all three decisions.

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Update 2. October 30

The Leninsky District Court of St Petersburg has sentenced 18-year-old Stoptime drummer Vladislav Leontyev to another 12 days of administrative arrest for “organising an unsanctioned public event” (Part 1, Article 20.2.2 of the Administrative Code). The charge relates to a street concert on September 26, a Mediazona correspondent reports from the courtroom.

Leontyev had only just completed a 13-day jail term under the same article. After his release, he briefly went missing: on the morning of October 29 it emerged that police had taken him to the city’s 2nd Police Department, where they drew up a new protocol.

During today’s hearing, his defence argued that the drummer was not performing at the time and place listed in the protocol. Police based their evidence on a Telegram post from the outlet Bumaga showing Stoptime playing Monetochka’s song “Ty soldat” (“You’re a Soldier”). However, the defence demonstrated that Stoptime actually performed that song a day later, as indicated in the post itself, and that the video could not have been recorded at the time listed in the protocol due to streetlights visible in the footage. The court refused to summon the police officers who drafted the report for questioning.

Leontyev’s lawyer also asked the judge to consider that the musician’s father is currently fighting in Ukraine and that today was his last day of leave, making this the family’s only chance to meet, but the request was denied.

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Update 3. November 11

On November 11, the Leninsky District Court in St Petersburg concluded new administrative hearings against Diana Loginova and Alexander Orlov. Both were accused of organising a mass event (“Organisation of a mass simultaneous presence and/or movement of citizens in public places that has resulted in a disturbance of public order”), the same charge previously used to penalise Stoptime’s informal street performances.

It is the third time that the pair have faced arrest under the same provision. Both were detained immediately after finishing their previous 13-day terms in detention centres.

During the hearing, defence lawyer Maria Zyryanova petitioned to call police officers who had drawn up the report, the supposed civilian complainants, and Loginova’s mother as a witness to the performance on Sennaya Square. She also presented Yandex Maps data showing that the 25 people mentioned in the protocol could not have blocked the surrounding space. Judge Elena Samsonova conceded to mother questioning (she testified that no obstruction of passersby movement had occurred and that the musicians did not perform at the time recorded by police) and the map but still handed down new 13-day arrests for both musicians.

This is the third consecutive administrative prosecution of Stoptime members since mid-October. Band’s drummer Vladislav Leontyev was not re-arrested after his second stint in the deletion centre.