The punk-rock group called Pussy Riot tried to film a music video for its song, “Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland,” in Sochi today. Instead, journalists filmed a clash between the anti-Putin musical troupe and uniformed security forces.
Questions may arise about whether the surreal scene was staged or not. The melee shown in the video suggests it was all-too real.
As the group quickly formed for their video shoot, security forces just as quickly formed to disperse them. Video shot by the state-owned RT network showed police whipping the musicians as they donned masks and spraying them with a Mace-like substance. One dress-wearing male member of the group sustained a gash on his forehead. The security ripped off the colorful ski masks from the band members’ faces. At one point, an officer pushes a female musician’s face rather roughly. Another musician holding an electric guitar had it ripped from his arms. Security knocked various Pussy Riot members to the ground.
The chaotic scene surely makes the group’s point more emphatically then their music does. Do the Russian authorities know this? Are they on Pussy Riot’s publicity payroll? Was this the plan of Pussy Riot, who make up for in PR skills what they lack in musical ability, all along?
Russian authorities arrested two members of Pussy Riot, who had been released in December from prison after nearly two years there, earlier in the week on charges of stealing from a hotel.
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