UKRAINE UPDATE
SOCHI, Russia — Members of the performance-art group Pussy Riot were attacked on a public plaza Wednesday by Cossacks brandishing whips and discharging pepper spray, a day after police picked them up and held them for nearly four hours without charges.
An Associated Press video showed the Cossacks advancing on the five women and one man with whips, knocking them down and striking them. The performers had just been shown gathering quickly at an outdoor plaza in Sochi, about 20 miles from the Olympic Park, taking off coats, putting on their ski masks and preparing to perform when the Cossacks attacked.
The Cossacks roughly pulled off the masks and flicked their whips at the group. When the group escaped they tweeted what had happened, providing details and photos. They had been preparing to make a video of a new protest song, “Putin will teach you how to love your Motherland,” when the Cossacks appeared and set upon them.
A photographer is whipped by a Cossack while trying to photograph members of the punk group Pussy Riot on Wednesday. AP
Pussy Riot has a storied and controversial history in Russia. Two members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, were arrested after they took part in a protest in February 2012. They, along with other members of the group, mounted the altar of Moscow’s main Orthodox cathedral and sang a protest song criticizing President Vladimir Putin and his close ties to the Russian Orthodox Church. Both women served nearly two years in prison before their December release.
The Cossacks, descended from czarist-era horsemen who patrolled the borders of the Russian empire, are remembered historically for leading pogroms against Jews. Today they are socially conservative and ardent supporters of the Russian Orthodox Church. Recently, they have been revived as a sort of volunteer citizen patrol, and about 800 of them have supplemented the police providing security for the Winter Games here.
Video: International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams spoke briefly about the punk band Pussy Riot and expressed hope for an end to Ukraine’s violence. Associated Press
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