Pussy Riot have announced their debut album Cyka, due 12th June, alongside new single ‘Candy Dopamine’ featuring Avenged Sevenfold.
The Russian protest collective did not announce the record with a conventional press cycle. Instead, Nadya Tolokonnikova and the group stormed the Venice Biennale, timing the action deliberately to coincide with Russia’s controversial return to the international art event. The resulting footage became the video for album track ‘Disobey’. The stunt came weeks after Tolokonnikova was formally indicted by Russia’s Investigative Committee in April 2026, accused of violating the country’s foreign agent law.
Cyka, a Russian word meaning “bitch”, compresses fourteen years of activism, imprisonment, surveillance and exile into fourteen tracks. Among its more pointed provocations: the title track lists Vladimir Putin as a featured contributor in the DSP liner notes. Tolokonnikova does not intend to pay him royalties. Alongside the album announcement, Pussy Riot issued a challenge to Putin to face Tolokonnikova in a cage match at the White House.
‘Candy Dopamine’ is the album’s lead single. Featuring Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows, who previously collaborated with Pussy Riot on a 2023 version of ‘We Love You’ in support of LGBTQ+ people in Russia, the track mixes pop hooks with alternative rock and heavy riffs. Tolokonnikova has described it as “a love and hate song to prescription and designer drug culture”, drawing on her own experience with antidepressants for PTSD and depression. Other collaborators on the album include B-Real of Cypress Hill and pop artist Salem Ilese.
A performance at the Beyond The Streets exhibition in Paris on 20th June follows the album’s release.
