“We were on the edge, but we didn’t cross the line”: Musicians across Russia come out in support of jailed anti-war street performers

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Russian street singer Diana Loginova — better known by her stage name Naoko — has been arrested yet again, this time receiving two consecutive 13-day sentences. One charge accuses her of “organizing the mass presence of citizens in public places,” a common pretext used by authorities to punish participation in unsanctioned gatherings. The second charge cites her use of “obscene language” in songs by the rapper Noize MC, a musician who is blacklisted in Russia for his antiwar views.

Loginova’s bandmate in the street group Stoptime, guitarist Alexander Orlov, was also sentenced to 13 days under the article on “organizing an unauthorized public event.” Before the new arrests, the two had announced their engagement — Orlov proposed to Naoko inside a police van as they were being taken to serve their first sentence.

A third member of the group, drummer Vladislav Leontyev, was expected to be released from custody late on Oct. 28, but, according to the local outlet Bumaga, he never appeared at the exit of the detention facility. It later emerged that he had been transferred overnight to another police station and is now awaiting another court hearing.

Stoptime became popular long before its members were arrested for singing out against the war. The group started playing on the streets of St. Petersburg in April 2025, performing songs by the exiled pop icon Monetochka, anti-war punk band Pornofilmy, outspoken anti-war rapper Noize MC, Ukrainian indie rock band Valentin Strykalo, legendary Russian rock band Mumiy Troll, and many others.

However, the band saw a sudden spike in its fame following an Oct. 12 performance on Nevsky Prospekt, across from Kazan Cathedral. There, Naoko and the crowd sang Noize MC’s “Cooperative Swan Lake,” a song that the Primorsky District Court in St. Petersburg has declared to be “information banned in the Russian Federation.” Video of the scene spread quickly on social media.

In the days before the musicians were arrested, significant outrage was voiced in Russia’s pro-war community (1, 2), and a lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party, Mikhail Romanov, asked the authorities to “look into” Stoptime’s performance, claiming that his colleague “from Crimea was surprised to see teenagers in the streets jumping to songs by foreign agents.”

As the group faces mounting pressure, a wave of solidarity has spread across Russian TikTok, where users post protest videos tagged #FreeNaoko and #StopTime. Across several Russian cities, other street musicians have begun performing in public to show their support.

In an interview with Bumaga that Naoko gave this summer, the singer said she performs the songs she does because “they have love in them”:

“I hear a lot of songs that are played on the streets, but I don’t feel the emotions in them that are close to me — it’s just lyrics and music. If I feel that a song has a message and the author was able to convey a feeling of love, I understand: that’s mine, I want to perform it, to transmit it and promote it.

On top of that, I understand that art now is the only language, at least in Russia, through which you can say what you think. I chose it and I don’t want to speak any other language. I speak the language of art,” she told the publication.

Following the arrests of Naoko and Stoptime, TikTok users launched a wave of solidarity videos under hashtags such as #FreeNaoko, #StopTime, #DianaLoginova, #FreedomForRussia, and #PetersburgTogether, generating thousands of posts. The support has spilled beyond social media into real-world protests in several Russian cities. In Moscow, activist Vasily Krasnov staged a solo picket with a sign reading “Freedom for street musicians.” A similar one-person demonstration took place in Novosibirsk. Russian pop singer Monetochka, whose songs Stoptime had performed, wrote a poem in support and recited it onstage during her concert in Valencia, Spain.

Musicians online and in the street

The strongest protest against Stoptime’s arrest has emerged among musicians themselves — both online and in the streets. In Yekaterinburg, street musician Yevgeny Mikhailov (who performs under the name “Zhenka Radost”) was arrested for 14 days and charged with petty hooliganism after singing “Cooperative ‘Swan Lake’” in support of Naoko and Stoptime. Earlier, he had posted a photo from a street performance next to a person in a dinosaur costume holding a sign that read, “Even dinosaurs [support] freedom.”

Another street singer, Tatyana [name changed for safety reasons] from the town of Veliky Novgorod told The Insider that before Naoko’s arrest she and her friends had done only one performance. Afterward, they decided to keep going out as a show of support:

“I felt genuinely sorry for her [Naoko]. I believe this situation is absolutely unfair, although I’m not surprised. Through her performances, she expressed the truth — a truth that is uncomfortable for the authorities. And she gave us hope, she showed us that we’re not alone. She opened our eyes, risking her own safety. So I went out to sing in her support, because it’s the least I could do,” Tatyana explained.

Tatyana and her group plan to keep playing on the streets of their city. She said they mostly perform songs by Noize MC, Monetochka, Valentin Strykalo, and legendary rock bands Nautilus Pompilius, Splean, and Zemfira, whose music often carries themes of freedom and introspection that have resonated with Russia’s post-Soviet generations.

“I personally can use these songs to express a certain message and at least some level of dissatisfaction with the authorities and with the state of things in the country,” she said.

According to Tatyana, what worries her most is the reaction of the audience: “You can never predict whether there are pro-government people or ‘special military operation’ guys among them.” She also said that, looking at Stoptime’s experience, her group has decided to stop performing some songs that are on the list of banned material, at least for now.

On Oct. 22, musicians in Perm also decided to perform in solidarity with Stoptime. About 100 people came to the concert across from a shopping center on Popov Street. The young performers sang songs by Pornofilmy and Noize MC. At least five police officers watched the entire performance explained Ekaterina, the event’s organizer:

“When I learned what Naoko had done, I immediately wrote to my musician friends. That news was literally everywhere. What spoke to me in what she did was the desire to live and to speak about what matters. That’s what I felt, and without overthinking it I decided to set up a solidarity concert in support of the young musician, the vocalist of the band Stoptime. They lit a spark in people. Their songs were the voice of an ordinary citizen who wants, without fear of their own people, to speak about their feelings and be heard.”

According to Ekaterina, police officers recorded all the musicians’ personal information in case the performance turned into an illegal rally. However, she said no one was detained. “We weren’t calling for anything. We were on the edge, but we didn’t cross the line. In the Russian Federation there’s no article to jail you for performing songs by ‘foreign agents,’ but there is a law on discrediting the Russian armed forces. You have to keep that in mind, and we are an example of that [balance],” she said, adding that “the police officers who came up to talk to me were also, surprisingly, kind and responsive. I thank them for that separately. It was nice that we were understood correctly.”

Naoko and Stoptime have unintentionally become a symbol of free music, and it is painful to watch what is happening to them, said Denis, a street musician who took part in the Perm performance.

“The concert itself came together pretty spontaneously, but that made it no less sincere. Police came up to us, asked why we had gathered, and then ‘hinted’ that we shouldn’t play. We, in my view, did the right thing and kept going, because if we had backed off at that moment, everything would have completely lost its meaning,” he said.

On Oct. 28, amid the proceedings against Stoptime, members of another St. Petersburg street music group, Restart, were detained while performing on Sennaya Square. According to a report by Bumaga, the members of the group were accused of “violating the procedure and requirements for conducting street performances.”

Several media outlets reported that the musicians had taken to the street to support Naoko and Stoptime, but that is not accurate. The group itself said this was one of their regular performances.

The musicians told The Insider several days before their detention that they should not be compared to Stoptime. “People love to compare us, but we keep proving that we’re about something different. Our RESTART is our reboot. A reboot of music and of people. Our own reboot. Not stopping time,” they said.

The performers also described their fears after the arrests of the group:

“We sing from the heart — our own and the audience’s — so we sing pretty much whatever. Like probably all musicians, we’re afraid. Especially after the latest news. But here you have to choose: either we give you and us joy, or we save our own skin. People obviously want to hear the popular songs, but also the ones that resonate.”

A few hours after Restart was detained, the musicians were released from the station, posting on their Telegram channel that there would be no street sets in the near future.

Viral tracks and growing support on social media

As street musicians continue to perform viral protest songs in public, TikTok users are flooding the platform with videos set to tracks by Monetochka and Noize MC, which have garnered tens of thousands — and in some cases millions — of views in just a few days. The most frequently used songs are “You’re a Soldier,” “Swan Lake,” and “Bright Streak.” Users typically post either montages of footage (1, 2) that fit the songs’ message, or else merely produce lip-sync clips (1, 2).

Some users have drawn stark comparisons between Naoko’s arrest and unpunished real-world crimes. In one viral video, a middle-aged woman posted photos showing the aftermath of an assault against her, along with the caption: “I couldn't get a criminal conviction [against the perpetrator who did this], but she was immediately sentenced for songs.”

TikTok has also been flooded with artistic tributes to Naoko, from hand-drawn portraits to AI-generated images (1, 2, 3). One widely shared illustration shows her standing between two faceless, monstrous police officers, smiling as she holds a flaming heart in her hands.

Many users compare the detained singer, who once made a heart gesture to her audience, to Alexei Navalny, Russia’s late opposition leader. AI-generated videos of Naoko performing Monetochka’s “You’re a Soldier” are also widely shared.

TikTok users are also actively discussing the case in spoken-word videos, speculating about how such an arrest could happen at all. Some express outrage that the charges were officially based not on Noize MC’s openly political “Swan Lake” — long seen as an antiwar anthem — but on “Bright Streak,” a more introspective song with no explicit references to the military. Others are baffled as to why, after serving 13 days in detention and paying the appointed fine, Diana Loginova was not released but was instead sent back to another police station.