Wife of Russian protest artist Pavel Krisevich leaves Russia after two back-to-back detentions

Yelena Morgunova, wife of Russian protest artist Pavel Krisevich, has managed to leave Russia after a series of back-to-back detentions, the artist said on October 10. Police detained her in the Ryazan region on August 28, during a short visit to relatives. In an interview with the independent outlet Meduza, Morgunova described her detention, her life in Paris and the threats she says she received from security officers.

Why she went back to Russia

Krisevich and Morgunova had lived in France since late 2025. They left on a humanitarian visa after the artist served two jail terms for administrative offenses. In Paris the couple lived in a squat, an abandoned office building, in a space with no window. French authorities did not give them joint housing: only Krisevich was offered a temporary place in a refugee dormitory. Morgunova stayed briefly with acquaintances and then went to her mother in Russia, hoping to wait for a job offer, since getting a work visa while already inside France is almost impossible.

She considered the risk low: her social media accounts were private, she did not take part in her husband's protests, and she had lived in Moscow for about six months after he left without problems.

The detention

On a bus near Skopin, police officers checked the passports of people who had returned from "unfriendly" countries. Morgunova and her mother were taken to a police station, where she was asked whether her husband was a "foreign agent" and told her phone had to be checked. A court sentenced her to administrative arrest, citing a failure to show her passport, which she says is untrue.

She says she was later questioned by six FSB officers (Russia's Federal Security Service) in plain clothes. They threatened her mother and her dog and suggested she might have been recruited. After she served her term, she was detained again and accused of using drugs, which she denied; she demanded a lawyer.

Morgunova is now travelling to Paris by train to join her husband. The couple plan to apply for family reunification so that she can obtain a residence and work permit.