“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Russia”
Words and images by Bil Brown
On June 14, 2025, Pussy Riot marched with the No Kings protest in downtown Los Angeles, brandishing a vivid red banner with the iconic ski masks worn known for the group that proclaimed in stark type: “It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia.” This was no catchy slogan—it was a diagnosis rooted in reality.
Nadya Tolokonnikova had debuted POLICE STATE at MOCA Geffen, her very personal and immersive critique of surveillance and state coercion from Putin’s Russia, but also inviting other victims of state oppression. But before the exhibit could even be absorbed by a single visitor, it was shuttered. Not due to artistic missteps, but because the very edifice of policing—on steroids—had descended on the city via the DHS and ICE, then a Federalized National Guard and even US Marines. Even a protest has a thesis, Nadya’s was deceptively cute and in the history of protests relatively benign:
“There’s a Christmas song that starts playing after Thanksgiving, the one that says “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…. Everywhere you go.” Maybe they just start putting up lights or you see decorations at stores, but it starts and you begin to feel it coming. Well… It’s beginning to feel a lot like Russia…. Everywhere you go.”
On June 6, ICE and Homeland Security agents conducted raids across central L.A.: from garment district warehouses to a Westlake Home Depot and clothing wholesalers. That same day, 44 individuals were “administratively arrested” for immigration violations, and one person faced charges of obstruction—among them, SEIU California’s president, David Huerta, who was arrested for blocking ICE vehicles and suffered injuries during the confrontation.
These raids triggered immediate community backlash. Crowds gathered and protests formed, sometimes clashing with agents—flash-bangs, teargas, and tactical vehicles deployed to stifle dissent. These weren’t fringe skirmishes; they were protest movements that fused together in the downtown streets.
A day later, June 7, President Trump invoked Title 10, federalizing up to 4,000 California National Guard troops and ordering 700 Marines to Los Angeles under the newly formed Task Force 51. By mid‑week, about 2,100 Guardsmen and 700 Marines were positioned around federal buildings, purportedly to guard personnel and property, not for general law enforcement purposes—a stipulation rooted in Posse Comitatus restrictions.
Still, the optics were crystal clear: seasoned militarized forces on American streets, trained in crowd control and permitted temporary detention. The cost? A projected $134 million over 60 days, drawing constitutional attacks from California’s leaders and igniting a major lawsuit—Newsom v. Trump. That legal battle saw a district court temporarily block the deployment, only to have the decision stayed by the Ninth Circuit conveniently for the NO KINGS protests planned for the weekend of Trump and the Military’s DC parade.
LA is scared, and what is an artists role but to reflect what is going on. Nadya is sensitive to these points, “My job as an artist is to interpret those feelings. I felt that tingle for a bit now, that is why I did the POLICE STATE exhibit. The walls are closing, the camera systems are getting AI upgrades, you have to censor what you say or unidentified masked men will show up at your home, at your work, at your church. One day, leaving the museum, I stepped into an actual police state – rows of police assaulting peaceful protesters. Today the museum that hosts POLICE STATE – MOCA – is closed due to the actual police state.”
But we still have our First Amendment freedoms, the government cannot restrict protests based on their viewpoint or message, as long as they are peaceable and within a reasonable timeframe and manner. We are still America, and that is one of the things that makes us great.
L.A. saw thousands assemble near City Hall. As a long-time former resident of DTLA, I had seen many of these protests since November 2016, after Trump’s initial election. I had been there for the Women’s March, and BLM. Nothing was like this, it seemed the streets themselves had largely bore everyone in town. Street Vendors sold food, people sold schwag, and everyone from abuela to babies were there.
At 12:30PM the protest was officially over but many stayed. Around 6PM, though largely peaceful, law enforcement—including the National Guard and Marines—deployed tear gas, rubber bullets, and early dispersal orders well before curfew. Seven LAPD officers were reported injured during the standoffs, we don’t have a number on the civilians hurt by rubber bullets, tear gas and psychological warfare. It made me wonder about the actual constitutionality of limiting protests into “lawful” and “unlawful” assembly. In a Democracy isn’t any form of protest legal, and arguably essential?
Parallel to these events, June 14 is Flag Day, Trump’s 79th birthday, and the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary. In Washington, a multimillion-dollar parade rolled out tanks and flyovers. In over 2,000 U.S. cities, 5–11 million people mobilized under No Kings banners—a massive nationwide protest against authoritarian drift. By all indications, the Military Parade while set more to honor the troops, fell pitifully flat in attendance.
Amid a very peaceful protest, Pussy Riot’s banner cut through with intensity. AFP, The Guardian, The London Times, Rolling Stone, almost everyone captured the group at City Hall, unfurling their message amid the swelling crowd, many outlets used it as their lead image for the protest in LA. As Werner Herzog once said, “We live in a society that has no adequate images anymore” the banner was effective.
I walked with Pussy Riot from the steps of the city building to Pershing Square. Ironic for me, because my grandfather was the First Class bugler for General “Blackjack” Pershing, the highest decorated General the Military has ever had, after WWI. In this protest we had what the military was actually for, or thought to be for, protecting democracy. Now we have people, and artists fulfilling that role.
Nadya’s reflects, “It’s not quite a penal colony here, but a halfway house. Once again, when I write a statement or a song, a demon on my left shoulder is whispering: “How much is too much? Will this get you jailed or not quite yet??”. The answer is – idfk.”
This calculus of fear is familiar to her—as she was well-known for being detained for having a voice people listened to, being an artist in the panopticon of a rogue-state run by Oligarchs: the artist is forever watching the watcher. In Russia Navalny and Nemtsov faced detention, terror, even assassination. Her Russian lawyer told her, “Nadya, stop asking me what’s safe – if you want to be safe, leave Russia”.
She did. “I refused to leave for years – until it became clear that if I stayed, I’d spend the rest of my life behind bars.” And yet here she stood in LA with Pussy Riot again, this time marching alongside Angelenos under siege—immigrants, activists, other artists, abuletas, street vendors, farmers, people of all walk of life —facing a militarized state. Again. Nadya says, “Now we are on the street protesting alongside people who believe immigrants make America great.”
What did the city look like over the weekend? The armed troops still guarding federal courthouses, even in a case documented pushing and detaining a protestor. An older man pushed down by police. Journalists censored or shot with rubber “non-lethals”. A primarily peaceful demonstration met with gas, mounted police trampling crowds, and flash-bangs.
Meanwhile, in D.C., the tanks rolled. The soldiers watched. The narrative: strength. The counter-narrative: spectacle. But it wasn’t even close to the millions who protested NO KING in 2100 events around the country the same day. In fact it was rather sad, on and off rainy and no where near the expected crowd showed.
And in LA what of Nadya’s installation at MOCA Geffen now closed for security, the show postponed. The art that couldn’t keep the gallery open now unfolded in the streets—teargas, banners, chants, fear. Nadya quips, “It’s surreal but not really surprising. I guess you could say it’s my first artistic collaboration with the United States Military.”
This isn’t about future dystopia. It’s happening now. Documented in flash-bang TikTok videos and Instagram stories, activist livestreams, suppressed by an algorithm, state and federal lawsuits, the cost of troop deployment—all writ in dollar signs, tear gas, and the cost is human fear and people disappear.
Everywhere you turned, it looked like Russia: parade floats replaced by military convoys. Surveillance systems upgraded. Unidentified men in masks at protests. Pride flags banned. Politicians bullied, and on the same day as No Kings, politicians assassinated. Peaceful dissent met with rubber bullets, mounted police, and gas. The same authoritarian symphony she’s spent her life confronting—now echoing back at her in the U.S.—in the broken paradise of LA.
Pussy Riot didn’t come here to stage a show—they came to ring an alarm. It is beginning to look a lot like Russia.
It’s up to us to heed the warning. And America isn’t quite there. We are “Beginning” to look a lot like Russia, this is not normal. Normalizing this government overreach, the gradual acceptance without proper challenge or resistance is one of the first stages of authoritarian control. But we have time. We have the means. Millions of people across the nation came together to say, NO KINGS. We have the means to take the next steps. As another banner pointed out,
We ARE the Constitution.
