Russian music group Pussy Riot has escaped house detention in Moscow by disguising herself as a delivery driver.
Maria Alyokhina was encountering a sentence in a penal colony under harsh laws banning criticism in the country. But she was able to elude police in the Russian capital despite effectively being under house arrest in an escape she likened to a "spy novel".
Now safely in Lithuania, Alyokhina is among tens of thousands of Russians who have left the country after draconian laws to clamp down on opposition were brought in following the invasion of Ukraine.
She said the band now intends to tour to raise money for those affected by the war.
She told The New York Times: “A lot of magic happened last week. It sounds like a spy novel.”
In an interview, she disclosed that she disguised herself as a food courier to get away from Moscow, where she was being closely watched.
Alyokhina, 33, said: “I don’t think Russia has a right to exist anymore.
“Even before, there were questions about how it is united, by what values it is united, and where it is going.
"But now I don’t think that is an issue anymore.”
Alyokhina, who has been jailed repeatedly for staging protests against the Putin regime, was able to cross the border into Belarus.
She was supported by an Icelandic friend who was able to smuggle her travel documents.These helped her reach Lithuania a week later, the newspaper reported, as her Russian passport had been seized by authorities.
She said that although modern Russia looks like a "big demon" from the outside, her escape ascertains that it is "very disorganised".
In her experience, the activist said, the "right-hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing".
Punk band Pussy Riot were first catapulted into the spotlight a decade ago when they held a dramatic anti-Putin protest at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow.
This landed members a two-year prison sentence but did not dissuade their activism.