At 22, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has a long history of political activism, often in concert with her husband, Pyotr Verzilov, who has championed Pussy Riot's cause in Russia and abroad.

The duo, members of the radical art collective Voina, shot to underground fame in 2008 after being photographed taking part in an orgy in Moscow's biological museum to protest against the election of Dmitry Medvedev, the man Putin handpicked to hold his place in the Kremlin.

She also took part in the group's most famous art performance – drawing a giant phallus on a drawbridge across from the FSB headquarters in St Petersburg.

Tolokonnikova was in her final year of philosophy studies at Moscow State University, Russia's most prestigious university, when she was arrested. Verzilov is caring for their four-year-old daughter.

She has received much attention for her striking looks. The prosecution often made her out to be the evil genius behind Pussy Riot, questioning witnesses who knew the other two women about whether their behaviour changed after they met her.

In her opening statement, read by a lawyer, Tolokonnikova apologised for those who were insulted by Pussy Riot's performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. "We had no intentions to offend anyone," she said. "We wish that those who cannot understand us can forgive us."

She spelled out the group's intent: "The words we spoke and our entire punk performance aimed to express our disapproval of a specific political event: the patriarch's support of Vladimir Putin, who has taken an authoritarian and anti-feminist course. Our performance contained no aggression towards the audience, but only a desperate desire to change the political situation in Russia for the better."

• This article was amended on 9 August 2012 to correct the phrase "in cohort with her husband".