Pussy Riot Member Shtein Placed On Russia's Wanted List.

Russian activist Lyusya Shtein (file photo)

MOSCOW -- Moscow municipal lawmaker Lyusya Shtein, who is also a member of the Pussy Riot protest group, has been added to the Russian Interior Ministry’s wanted list .

Shtein’s name appeared in the ministry’s registry of wanted suspects on May 16. She is wanted for violating a parole-like sentence she was handed last August for violating coronavirus safety precautions by calling on people to protest against the detention of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.

The outspoken critic of Russia's invasion of Ukraine left the country last month after her apartment door was marked with a Z-shaped sticker inscribed with the slogan "Collaborator. Do Not Sell The Motherland" in an apparent attempt to intimidate her.

Many Russian military vehicles and tanks have been marked with the letter Z during the ongoing invasion, with the insignia becoming an increasingly ubiquitous symbol of support for the war launched against in February, for the military, for the Kremlin’s policies, and most of all for President Vladimir Putin.

Last week, Shtein's partner and a founding member of the Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, told the New York Times that she also had left Russia after a Moscow court changed the remainder of her one-year parole-like sentence to real prison time last month, saying she violated the terms of her punishment.

Alyokhina's whereabouts were unknown for weeks after the Russian Interior Ministry added her to its registry of wanted persons on April 26, five days after a Moscow court approved the change in a parole-like sentence she was handed last September on the same charge as Shtein faced.

Alyokhina, Shtein, and other members of the protest group have been sentenced to up 15 days in jail several times in recent months over taking part in protest actions and unsanctioned rallies.

Pussy Riot came to prominence after three of its members were convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for a stunt in which they burst into Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral and sang a "punk prayer" against Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time and campaigning for his subsequent return to the Kremlin.

Alyokhina and bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova had almost completed serving their two-year prison sentences when they were freed in December 2013 under an amnesty. The two have dismissed the move as a propaganda stunt by Putin to improve his image ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics that were held in the Russian resort city of Sochi.