Pussy Riot played into the hands of a ruthless president

The organisation that raised Vladimir Putin to the rank of lieutenant colonel once made something of a habit of desecrating churches.

The KGB did not waste much time on theological debate or public opinion. Religion was the enemy of an atheist state, fit only to be suppressed, if not eradicated.

In fact, the not-so-secret police were redoubling their efforts at just around the time the young law graduate from Leningrad State was joining the ranks. In 1975, while Putin was being trained, the Soviet government took formal legal control of the "supervision" of the Orthodox church. Priests liable to make trouble would be suborned, blackmailed, dismissed, or consigned to psychiatric hospitals.

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