Macho man Putin is afraid of girls!

The tiger hunting macho man is afraid of girls
(image by premier.gov.ru)

The great macho Vladimir Putin, ruler of Russia, who has a black belt and shoots tigers,  is afraid of girls! : 

Commentators predicted that the weakened Vladimir Putin would compromise with his political opposition as he began his third (actually fourth) term as Russia’s head of state. Our pundits do not understand Putin. For “once-KGB-always-KGB” Putin, compromise is an admission of weakness. Opposition is to be crushed, not bargained with. If  one hundred thousand demonstrators go on the streets, beat some of them, arrest some, fine them a year’s salary, or jail them as “inciters of mass disorder.”  If anti-corruption bloggers attract too large an audience, pass anti-defamation laws, harass and interrogate then, and then stick them in jail to rot. If investigative reporters get too close, look the other way when they are murdered.

Putin’s persecution targets to date have been grown ups, such as  Oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, popular anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, who was charged today with embezzlement, investigative reporter (deceased) Anna Politovskaya, Chess master Gary Kasparov, or ex-KGB (deceased) Alexander Litvinenko. Putin’s new enemies are young, naïve, and often female. Muscular, rock-ribbed, macho Putin is picking fights with girls! This doesn’t look good.

On February 21, Putin’s security forces arrested three members of the Pussy Riot feminist band, baklavas covering their faces, as they entreated the Virgin Mary to “get rid of Putin” in a “happening” performance in the Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. Two band members escaped underground, where they are available for interviews. The arrested Pussy Riot girls –Nadya, Katya, and Masha — are in their early twenties. They have husbands. Two have young children. In April, Amnesty International declared them prisoners of conscience.On July 30, after five months of incarceration, Nadya, Katya and Masha pled not guilty to the charge of “hooliganism motivated by religious animosity” in the same Moscow courtroom in which the Khodorkovsky trial was held. A guilty plea (which their defense attorney expects) could carry a sentence of seven years.

In their statement to the court, Nadya, Katya, and Masha declared they intended no harm to believers. They were protesting the close political relationship between Putin and the corrupt head of the church, Patriarch Kirill (of  $50,000 Rolex watch fame). Kirill has already inserted himself into the case. The Church refers to the Pussy Riot girls as devil worshippers.

At least the steel bars on the steel courtroom defendant cage from the Khodorkosvky case have been replaced by clear glass. A father of one of the defendants volunteered that his daughter “looks like she has been on a long hunger strike. I think this is like an inquisition, like mockery.”  The girls’ lawyer accuses their jailors of food and sleep deprivation. State-run TV focuses on the unrepentant defendants: “Look at their faces; they are laughing and joking” and featured a traumatized parishioner: “When I talk about this event, my heart hurts. It hurts that this is possible in our country. Their punishment must be adequate so that never again is such a thing repeated.”

Putin will understand that he has made a major mistake in taking on a feminist punk rock group. He will be too stubborn to retreat. So he is stuck.

At home, the muscular judo-black-belt Putin looks like a sissy. As one of the at-large Pussy Riot members (“Squirrel”) taunted in an interview with the Guardian: “Putin is scared of us, can you imagine? Scared of girls. The most important dictator, Putin, is really afraid of people.” I tend to agree with Squirrel.

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