Pussy Riot announce debut full-length album ‘CYKA’, out June 12, 2026
Pussy Riot announce debut album “CYKA,” out June 12, 2026, with lead single “Candy Dopamine” featuring Avenged Sevenfold. Music video for “Disobey” out now.
Russian punk collective Pussy Riot announced “CYKA,” their debut full-length album, scheduled for release on June 12, 2026, on digital streaming platforms. The fourteen-track record compresses fourteen years of the group’s activity – including protest actions, imprisonment and exile – into a single body of work. The album title translates from Russian as “bitch.” Lead single “Candy Dopamine,” featuring Avenged Sevenfold, is out now with an official music video on YouTube.
“Candy Dopamine” was co-written by Pussy Riot with Avenged Sevenfold vocalist M. Shadows and guitarist Zacky Vengeance. The track mixes pop with alternative rock and features guest vocals from M. Shadows alongside heavy guitar work. Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova described the song as a statement on prescription and designer drug culture: “It started with my dependence on antidepressants, but it’s also looking at everyone now, mentalhealthmaxxing and looksmaxxing via pills and injections. It’s not a judgment, it’s just an observation, and my personal experience with these things is that I have to be in a long-term relationship with them for my PTSD and depression.”
This is the second collaboration between Avenged Sevenfold and Pussy Riot. In 2023, Tolokonnikova appeared on a reworked version of the Avenged Sevenfold track “We Love You,” re-released as “We Love You Moar,” raising awareness of the situation of LGBTQ+ people in Russia.
The album’s earlier single “Disobey” was released in May 2026. Its music video consists of footage from Pussy Riot’s “Storm of Venice” protest action at the 61st Venice Biennale, in which more than fifty members of the collective stormed the Russian pavilion with clouds of pink smoke. Ukrainian activist group FEMEN joined the demonstration, which was staged in protest at Russia’s return to the international art event. The 90-second track features distorted guitars, shouted vocals and chants of “disobey,” with lyrics in English and Russian condemning fascism and political silence.
‘CYKA’: collaborators, tracklist, and Putin challenge
Other confirmed contributors on “CYKA” include B-Real of Cypress Hill (on the track “Gore”) and singer-songwriter Salem Ilese (on “Utopia”). Russian President Vladimir Putin is listed as a contributor on the self-titled track “Cyka.” Tolokonnikova adds: “I’m not gonna give him royalties though, they can add it to my list of crimes.”
Tolokonnikova also announced a public challenge to Putin to fight her at the UFC Freedom 250 event, scheduled for June 14 at the White House. In her statement, she says: “All these old men ruining the world right now act tough, but we see through their fragile egos, and I’m not afraid to call them out. I challenge President Putin to a cage match. He loses? He gets the fuck out of Ukraine.”
About Pussy Riot
Pussy Riot is a Russian punk and protest collective founded in Moscow in 2011. The group operates as a loose, rotating collective but is closely associated with founders Nadya Tolokonnikova (also known as Nadya Tolokno) and Maria Alyokhina (known as Masha). The group staged performances in public spaces across Moscow as acts of political protest, often wearing brightly colored balaclavas.
In February 2012, three members – Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich – were arrested following a performance inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. They were convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and sentenced to two years in a penal colony. Samutsevich was released on appeal in October 2012; Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina served their full sentences, released in December 2013. The trial attracted international attention.
Following their release, Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina continued their political activism and released music under the Pussy Riot name. The group collaborated with Boys Noize on “Rage” in 2021, and with Boyfriend on the electropop single “Dance With the Devil” in 2023. In July 2025, a new Russian law criminalized searching for Pussy Riot content online. In April 2026, Tolokonnikova was formally indicted by Russia’s Investigative Committee for alleged violations of the country’s “foreign agent” law.
“CYKA” is Pussy Riot’s debut full-length album. It is released June 12, 2026.
Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
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