Dozens of young people wave their phone flashlights and sing along with a teen as she belts out lyrics and plays her keyboard outside a subway station.
It’s a scene that regularly plays out in cities around the world. But the singer in this widely shared video is now behind bars.
Diana Loginova, the 18-year-old student and street musician, has emerged as an unlikely — and perhaps unwilling — voice of defiance in wartime Russia.
Known by her stage name Naoko, the teen gained popularity over the summer with viral videos taken around St. Petersburg of her band Stoptime performing songs by musicians who have spoken out against Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Inevitably, in a country where nearly all forms of dissent have been crushed, Russian authorities quickly took notice.
Naoko was first detained last month for organizing a “mass simultaneous gathering of citizens” during a performance, which authorities said disrupted public order, and was sentenced to 13 days behind bars. She has since been rearrested twice on the same charges, as well as for petty hooliganism, and put back in prison. Her fellow band members have also served back-to-back sentences, although one has since been released.
“What is happening is what we call carousel arrests,” Dmitrii Anisimov, a human rights activist and spokesperson for the OVD-Info protest monitoring group, told NBC News. “Theoretically, it can continue forever,” he said. In practice, it could mean months in detention, and there is legal precedent for this, he added.
“It looks like Russian authorities want to use the persecution of Naoko, as with many other public cases, to intimidate others,” said Anisimov.
Loginova’s lawyer, Maria Zyryanova, told NBC News she wouldn’t discuss the case while the singer is behind bars. Her current sentence expires Sunday.
Naoko’s case has been extensively covered by Russian state news agencies and exiled independent media, while supporters have spread leaflets calling for her freedom.
In an interview published in August, months before her imprisonment, Naoko said she was “scared” to be detained but felt she “had to do it.”
“I understand that art is now the only language — at least in Russia — through which you can express your thoughts. I’ve chosen it and don’t want to speak any other,” she told St. Petersburg news outlet Bumaga.
Others have taken up that language in Loginova’s absence.
On a bench near the Kiyevskaya metro station in central Moscow, musician Vasily told NBC News that Naoko’s case had “lit a fire” in him, inspiring his own street performances as a way to support the jailed singer.
“Her freedom was taken away for her singing,” said Vasily, whose last name NBC News chose not to reveal for his safety. “That got me mad.”
Valentina, a professional musician from the city of Yaroslavl, about 380 miles southeast of St. Petersburg, has been singing on both the streets and social media in support of Naoko.
Inspired after seeing Naoko’s performances on TikTok, she has been posting videos where she performs the same songs. One gained more than 600,000 views on Instagram, which scared her because she did not want to get on authorities’ radar, said Valentina, who did not want her last name revealed for fear of repercussions. “When I saw the news about Naoko, it felt like my last hope was taken away,” she said. “I did not feel sorry for myself. I just really wanted to help. I thought, ‘Why do I berate people who keep silent and don’t say anything in our country when I am also remaining silent and scared?’”
Loginova is still a child, noted Vasily — himself only 19. “That’s what’s touched people, that this little girl is not afraid to get on the streets and sing the songs of foreign agents.”
He’s referencing the status of exiled singer Monetochka and rapper Noize MC, both slapped with the official designation often reserved for public figures whose views have set them at odds with the Kremlin.
It was a song by Noize MC, who has openly spoken out against the war and Putin’s regime, that Loginova performed before she first landed in jail.
The rapper’s lyrics that appear to have gotten her in the most trouble appear innocuous on the surface: “I want to watch a ballet, let the swans dance.”
It’s a reference to the failed 1991 coup attempt against the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, during which state TV showed the “Swan Lake” ballet on a continuous loop. It has since come to symbolize something dangerous in Putin’s Russia — change.
A video of the band’s cover of the song, which Loginova has said they performed rarely and not for the cameras, drew the ire of war supporters who questioned why the band was allowed to perform the songs of “traitors” and whether their performances were, in fact, concealed protests.
A representative for Noize MC said in an email that the rapper “prefers not to give interviews or public comments regarding this case — primarily to avoid any risk of unintentionally affecting those directly involved.”
Monetochka, whose songs the band also performed, hailed them as “heroes” in a statement on social media, saying that Loginova was bringing “music and freedom” into the world rather than “violence and war.” She did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
NBC News has reached out to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov for comment on the case.
Kremlin critic Boris Nadezhdin, who was barred from running against Putin in last year’s election, said he had been in communication with Loginova’s mom, Irina, and was fundraising to cover the band’s legal costs.
He has also been raising awareness on social media and said people’s emotional reactions were palpable. “She is young, she is a female, and she is not at all a politician or journalist. People are used to repressions against opposition politicians and journalists, but this is a new low,” said Nadezhdin.
The people who came to listen to the band were also young, he added, a red flag for the Kremlin because of its predominantly older support base. “So they need to have an exemplary reprisal against some young singer,” he said, “so that others get fearful.”
While she garners sympathy at home and abroad, Loginova remains behind bars for her singing. Nadezhdin said he was not optimistic about her chances of performing again anytime soon.
“They won’t leave her alone quickly,” he said. “I am telling them to get ready for a long ride ahead.”
