Yelena Morgunova, wife of performance artist Pavel Krisevich, was due to be released from jail when a Russian court sentenced her to 14 more days over an alleged refusal to take a drug test
A magistrate in Russia’s Ryazan region sentenced Yelena Morgunova, the wife of performance artist Pavel Krisevich, to 14 days of administrative detention on a charge of refusing a drug test, the Slovo Zashchite project said.
Morgunova was due to be released on September 7 after serving an earlier 10-day detention sentence. According to Morgunova, before her scheduled release from the detention center, she was taken to a police detective’s office. The officer said her pupils were dilated and asked her to take a drug test. Morgunova said she wanted to wait for her lawyer first. The officer treated that as a refusal to be tested.
“What really bothers me is that they had just brought her out of the detention center — and immediately into a detective’s office. We asked the court to summon the witnesses who observed the procedure and the detective. The court initially granted our request, then couldn’t reach anyone and ultimately said it would proceed without them. In other words, the court acknowledged that their testimony was important but did not wait for the witnesses to appear,” Morgunova’s lawyer, Leonid Solovyov, said.
Morgunova was detained in the Ryazan region on August 28. She had temporarily returned to Russia from France, where she and Krisevich had moved in December 2025. After her detention, Morgunova was sentenced to 10 days of administrative detention on charges of disobeying law enforcement officers’ orders.
Krisevich is known for performances protesting political repression. In 2022, he was sentenced to five years in a penal colony for staging a performance in Moscow’s Red Square to protest the police state. After his release in 2025, Russian authorities designated him a “foreign agent” and subjected him to repeated administrative arrests, a practice known as “carousel arrests.” He left Russia with Morgunova and applied for asylum in France.
Morgunova was detained in Russia shortly after former Pussy Riot activist Rita Flores said Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) had recruited her in 2023 and forced her to gather information on contemporary Russian artists, including Krisevich. Krisevich said his wife’s detention in Russia was another form of pressure.
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