The World Cup final between France and Croatia was briefly interrupted when four people dressed in Russian police uniforms invaded the pitch in the second half. The videos below show the pitch invaders, three of them women, running in different directions on the football field. The sole male invader managed to tick off a Croatian football player, while one of the women shared an iconic high-five with French footballer Kylian Mbappe.
The invaders were carried off the field by authorities after a 25-second delay to the game around the 56th minute. The Russian female protest punk group Pussy Riot claimed responsibility for the invasion, which led to the sole breach of security in the otherwise successful FIFA World Cup. Their aim, of course, was political protest, staged opportunely while Russian President Vladimir Putin watched the match from the stands.
In the video on top (turn on captions for English), three members of Pussy Riot confessed to having invaded the field and explained their reasons – lack of political freedom and police impunity. “The World Cup has shown wonderfully what the police can be like in Russia, but what will happen afterwards?” one of the activists asked, referring to the lenient policing by Russian authorities during the World Cup.
They also put out a list of demands which included freedom for political prisoners, freedom on the internet, freedom to protest, a stop on illegal arrests and fabricating criminal accusations, and to allow political competition in the country.
On Monday, the Russian judicial authorities sentenced four members of the group – Veronika Nikulshina, Olga Kuracheva, Olga Pakhtusova and Pyotr Verzilov – to 15 days in jail, and banned them from sporting events for three years.
According to Reuters, the pitch invaders were later detained by police, who were investigating them on suspicion of violating rules as well as for illegally wearing police uniforms.
Pussy Riot posted on Facebook on Monday evening that the four Pussy Riot members spent the whole night at the police station, where they weren’t allowed to sleep, eat or take a shower. They wrote that the activists weren’t informed where and when they would be taken to court hearings, and that in spite of the law, they weren’t allowed to see their lawyer. The invaders were charged with two misdemeanour cases which would lead to up to 15 days of detention, while the police informed the Russian press that they were initiating a legal procedure to possibly open up a criminal case.
A video posted on social media (below) shows the moments after the pitch invaders were detained. The video shows two of the invaders, a man and a woman, being interrogated. “You wanted to sh*t on Russia, didn’t you?” asked a man off-camera. “We are for Russia,” responded the male invader, to which the off-camera responded saying he regretted it wasn’t 1937, the year that marked the height of Josef Stalin’s political repression.
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