Pussy Riot Members Attacked With Whips By Cossack Militia In Sochi
There are still Cossacks? What year is this?
Anyone who didn’t regularly fall asleep in Modern History class in high school may be familiar with Russia’s notorious Cossacks. In Tsarist Russia, the groups served as border guards and quelled local uprisings, probably while on horse and brandishing ridiculous cutlasses. Somewhat insanely, they’ve made a resurgence during Putin’s reign, being used as an unofficial police force in Russia’s Krasnodar province, which includes Sochi, current host of the Winter Olympics. Overnight, they turned their attention to punk band, Pussy Riot.
Earlier this week, two prominent members of the band — Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina, who were released from Russian prison in December — were detained by police just outside the Olympics site. “We were just walking around Sochi when they grabbed us,” Tolokonnikova told The Guardian. “They told us we are suspected of theft. Of course, there has been no theft.”
Last night, as the band — sporting their trademark neon balaclavas — attempted a protest performance of their new song, ‘Putin Will Teach You To Love The Motherland’ outside a Sochi restaurant, they were swarmed by about a dozen uniformed Cossacks, who attacked the group with whips and pepper spray. A guitar was broken in the incident and band members were left bloodied, but no arrests were made after police questioned witnesses.
The Telegraph posted some fairly graphic footage of the incident, which you can see here.
According to The Guardian, the governor of the Krasnodar region Alexander Tkachev “promised to conduct a ‘thorough probe’ into the incident and prosecute the attackers. Tkachev added that the views of Pussy Riot ‘are not supported by the majority of people in the region’, but stressed the importance of abiding the law.” Sounds convincing!