Some of the fiercest ire against Pussy Riot has come not from the Kremlin, nor from a patently equivocal Prime Minister, but from Orthodox clergy and ordinary people, who regard the group's antics as blasphemy, and do not separate Church and State. The Kremlin's hand may indeed be discerned in this prosecution, but so can the outlines of a dispute about tolerance and what sort of society Russia wants to be. The reference to "breaking a butterfly on a wheel" is thus still more pertinent than it might seem. The Pussy Riot trial is about culture quite as much as it is about power.
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