I haven’t been that interested in the Pussy Riot trial, except to say going to jail has made their protest far more successful than it would have been if they’d been ignored. We’ve gotten used to ‘radicals’ doing something offensive and disappearing, but these girls performed a song, pissed off people enough to get arrested, forced Western journalists to compare their story to Soviet show trials, and ignited sympathetic protests around the world. When they get out of jail in two years they’ll be free-speech darlings and will probably have a widely successful global tour. If the point of their action was to highlight that Russia is intolerant of protest, then this whole story exemplifies that wonderfully.

However, Russia doesn’t care that Western people under the age of 40 who Tweet think this is outrageous. Reuters reports:

Valentina Ivanova, 60, a retired doctor, said outside the courtroom: “What they did showed disrespect towards everything, and towards believers first of all.”

A poll of Russians released by the independent Levada research group showed only 6 percent sympathized with the women and 51 percent found nothing good about them or felt irritation or hostility. The rest could not say or were indifferent.