Wife of Russian performance artist Krisevich sentenced to 14 more days in jail on drug-test charge

A magistrate court in Russia's Ryazan region has sentenced Yelena Morgunova, wife of performance artist Pavel Krisevich, to 14 days of administrative detention on a charge of refusing a drug test, the Slovo Zashchite project reported.

Morgunova had been due for release on September 7 after completing an earlier 10-day detention. According to her account, shortly before her scheduled release she was taken from the detention center to a police detective's office. The officer claimed her pupils appeared dilated and asked her to submit to a drug test. She asked to wait for her lawyer, and the officer treated this as a refusal.

Her lawyer, Leonid Solovyov, said what troubled the defense most was that Morgunova was taken straight from the detention center into the detective's office. The defense asked the court to summon witnesses who had observed the procedure, along with the detective himself. The court initially agreed, but later said it could not reach them and proceeded with the hearing regardless.

Earlier detention

Morgunova was first detained in the Ryazan region on August 28, having temporarily returned to Russia from France, where she and Krisevich relocated in December 2025. Following that detention, she received a 10-day administrative sentence for allegedly disobeying police orders.

Krisevich is known for performance art protesting political repression in Russia. In 2022, he was sentenced to five years in a penal colony over a protest staged on Red Square in Moscow. After his release in 2025, authorities labeled him a "foreign agent" and subjected him to repeated administrative arrests, a tactic often called "carousel arrests." He and Morgunova subsequently left Russia and sought asylum in France.

Morgunova's detention came shortly after former Pussy Riot member Rita Flores said Russia's FSB had recruited her in 2023 and pressured her into gathering information on contemporary Russian artists, including Krisevich. Krisevich has described his wife's detention as another form of pressure directed at their family.