Maria Baronova

[6] For two months during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev, she worked as business manager, assistant, press secretary, and spokeswoman for Ilya Ponomarev, a member of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament.

[10] In June 2012, after being formally charged with inciting a riot, she told Masha Gessen that she had been busy “reassuring people,” explaining that it was “like when a loved one dies: you have to let everyone know that things on the inside are not quite as horrible as they seem from the outside.”[5] Five weeks after the Bolotnaya Square protests, while Baronova and her son were not at home, agents of the Investigative Committee, Russia's FBI, forced her son's babysitter to open the door and raided it, carrying assault rifles.

'” The order also listed “two books, four laptops, a protest organizer's badge, 31 copies of the opposition newspaper Grazhdanin (Citizen), and exactly 15 'strips of white material 36 cm in length.

In addition, the agents confiscated family photos, protest buttons, “several booklets about Putin and a DVD of an anti-Putin movie,” as well as “a pin with a pink triangle, a symbol of gay rights activism.” They even took items of personal hygiene, a medical inhaler, and “ultrasound images from Baranova's pregnancy.” Apropos of the confiscation of the ultrasound images, Baronova said that she asked them: “do you think my child was planning unrest?” She later said that she found the entire seizure order funny, and that later, when she was interrogated, she found that procedure funny too, until she learned that she faced a charge of inciting a riot, the most serious charge yet leveled against any Bolotnaya Square protester.

[12] Prohibited from leaving Moscow, she was kept under watch by the authorities, who after their search of her flat repeatedly entered it again when she was out, moving furniture around and turning on her stove, which are reportedly "commonplace scare tactics".

In addition, she was reportedly spied on by social-service workers who issued “a thinly veiled threat that her son might be taken away from her.”[4] In late June, she received a visit from representatives of social services and was told that a complaint had been made about her parenting of Sasha.

Searching her flat, the social-service workers “asked why she had English-language books, why there were cigarettes on the kitchen table, whether the violin aligned with sanitary norms.” Commenting later on these questions, Boronova later said: “That's when I realised I'm in a nuthouse.”[11] Prohibited from leaving Moscow, she continued to be active in protest, feeling that her organizing skills “could help to bring down the power of crooks and thieves.”[4] In July 2012, for example, she helped establish a donation drive after 170 people died in a flood in the town of Krymsk.

[11] In a November 2012 Facebook posting, Baronova expressed her anguish over the injuries and prison sentences her fellow activists were receiving for their commitment.

The Daily Beast commented that Baronova, once "a young rising star of Russia's anti-Putin activist movement", was now unsure as to whether she wanted to continue pursuing activism.

But she has also expressed the wish to study abroad for a Ph.D.[11] Julia Ioffe of The New Republic reported on February 5, 2014, that Baronova was now working as a science correspondent for Dozhd (“Rain”), the last independent Russian TV channel.

“It is the only work that she, a chemist and once a well-paid sales manager at a chemical-supplies company, could get after becoming a defendant in such a public, politicised trial,” explained Ioffe.

[14] Shortly thereafter, Baronova wrote an article, entitled “No One Has Done More for Ukrainian Nationalism than Vladimir Putin,” that appeared in The New Republic's issue of March 3, 2014.

"[17][non-primary source needed] Several publications, including The New Republic and Rolling Stone magazine, have praised her activist work and fortitude in supporting Russia's opposition movement.

[18][6] Reuters journalist Lucian Kim described her as embodying "the contradictions of Russians who love their country, warts and all, and seek to reconcile it with the rest of the world.