Кооператив Лебединое озеро

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Youth Protest in Saint-Peterburg

On the weekend of October 11-12, 2025, an unusual event took place in Saint Petersburg, Vladimir Putin's hometown. Several hundreds of young people gathered in Vosstaniya Square to listen to 18-year-old street singer Diana Loginova, a pianist and student at the Saint Petersburg's Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory. Loginova, who founded the band Stoptime in April 2025 with guitarist Aleksander Orlov and drummer Vladislav Leontyev, performed several songs by singers who had been listed as «foreign agents» by the Russian authorities.

Click here to read more about «foreign agents»


The young people sang along loudly to the song Кооператив «Лебединое озеро» [Kooperativ Lebedinoye ozero] or Swan Lake Cooperative, written in 2023 by rapper Noize MC - the aforementioned «foreign agent».  


That song is a satire on Vladimir Putin and his entourage, and is full of references to everything that's gone wrong in the Russian Federation since Putin's rise to power.

Click here to read more about Noize MC's Swan Lake Cooperative


It was the first time since the death of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny that groups of people publicly stood up against the regime.


Diana Loginova

Diana Loginova and her band first came to the attention of the authorities in an interview published on the news site Бумага [Bumaga]  or The Paper on August 22, 2025. When the interviewer asked her if she had ever encountered problems with the public or the police when performing songs by Noize MC and other artists registered as «foreign agents», she replied: «I was surprised that even older people recognise and sing along to Noize MC's songs. The audience sings them by heart. I was surprised by how people reacted. And as for the police: they chase us away like street musicians, because it's practically forbidden in St. Petersburg. They tell us to pack up and then we move».

As a precaution, the news site only used her pseudonym, Naoko, which didn't prevent a growing number of targeted charges from then on. Six days after the publication, the members of Stoptime were arrested for the first time for noise disturbance. When they continued to perform, the Z activists (supporters of the war in Ukraine) began to demonstrate.

On September 29, 2025, Marina Magomednebiyevna Akhmedova, editor-in-chief of the Russian news agency Regnum and a member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, wrote a scathing post about Stoptime on the social network Telegram. She later dedicated several more indignant posts to the band, emphasizing that Loginova and her band were announcing their upcoming concerts on their Telegram channel «practically as if it were rallies» (sic).

Then came Stoptime's performances in Vosstaniya Square and on Nevsky Prospekt on the weekend of October 11 and 12, where the audience sang along to songs including Swan Lake Cooperative. Videos of the concerts were shared on Z channels, with users demanding punishment for both the musicians and their audience. On Tuesday, October 14, 2025, Loginova was arrested. The following day, the other Stoptime members were arrested too: They were accused of «turning their concerts the previous weekend into a protest».

Mikhail Valentinovich Romanov, a State Duma deputy from St. Petersburg and member of Putin's United Russia party, stated that a fellow deputy from the annexed Crimea showed him a video of «teenagers jumping around on the streets [in St. Petersburg] to the music of foreign agents [...] He saw a song about Swan Lake being played in front of Kazan Cathedral and was very surprised that such a thing was possible», Romanov said. After viewing the video, he requested an investigation by the Ministry of the Interior

On October 16, 2025, Diana Loginova and drummer Vladislav Leontiev were sentenced by the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Saint Petersburg to 13 days in prison, while guitarist Aleksander Orlov got 12 days. They were found guilty under Article 20.2.2, paragraph 1, of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses, which concerns the unauthorised organisation of mass gatherings.

On October 28, 2025, Loginova was fined 30,000 rubles (300 euros) by the Leninsky District Court of Saint Petersburg. According to the prosecutor, she violated Article 20.3.3 of the same Code of Administrative Offenses, which concerns publicly discrediting the Russian Armed Forces. After all, she had also sung the song Ты солдат [Ty soldat] or You Are a Soldier by singer Monetochka (Elizaveta Andreevna Gyrdymova), which included the words «You are a soldier, and you're so drunk you'll throw up soon. You are a soldier, and whatever war you fight, forgive me, I'll be on the other side». According to the prosecutor, Loginova had thereby discredited the Russian army, using a rather strange argument «Ukrainian citizens listen to the original version of that song when drones approach their houses» (sic).

Loginova was supposed to be released from prison that same day, but instead she was taken to the 76th police station in Saint Petersburg. The next day, on October 29, 2025, she was immediately arrested again for disturbing public order upon leaving prison. On September 27, 2025, they would have allegedly obstructed pedestrian access to the metro during a performance on Sennaya Square, where 25 people were listening to them. A day later, Orlov and Leontyev were arrested again for the same reason.

Both were supposed to be released on the night of November 23, but journalists waiting for them saw only cars leaving the detention center. Police reportedly transferred the musicians to another location «to prevent journalists from asking questions.» Their lawyer, Maria Zyryanova, asked not to disturb the musicians for the time being. She stated that they were safe and would soon release their own news. A few days later she gave an interview to Radio Svoboda in which she said that she had fled Russia to go to Armenia.

Loginova and Orlov are now engaged. The proposal took place at a gas station where the police van transporting the two had stopped.