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Watch the Music Video That Pussy Riot Filmed While Cossacks Beat Them

Well, that was fast. Just yesterday, Pussy Riot was being whipped by Cossacks while shooting their new music video. This morning, it's already out. The Cossacks, it turned out, just added excellent color for a song that talks about the repression of Vladimir Putin's Russia.  

The words, with some explanatory links:

$50 billion and a rainbow ray

Rodnina and Kabayeva will pass you the torch

They'll teach you to submit and cry in the camps

Fireworks for the bosses. Hail, Duce!

Sochi is blocked, Olympus is under surveillance

Special forces, weapons, crowds of cops

FSB - argument, Interior Ministry - Argument

On [state-owned] Channel 1 - applause.

Putin will teach you to love the Motherland.

In Russia, the spring can come suddenly

Greetings to the Messiah in the form of a volley from

Aurora, the prosecutor is determined to be rude

He needs resistance, not pretty eyes

An bird cage for protest, vodka, nesting doll

Jail for the Bolotnaya [activists], drinks, caviar

The Constitution is in a noose, [environmental activist] Vitishko is in jail

Stability, food packets, fence, watch tower

Putin will teach you to love the Motherland

They will turn off Dozhd's broadcast

The gay parade has been sent to the outhouse 

A two-point bathroom is the priority

The verdict for Russia is jail for six years

Putin will teach you to love the Motherland


Motherland

Motherland

Motherland

Weirdly, though, Pussy Riot does not thank the Interior Ministry representatives in Sochi—all those cops and Cossacks—for providing such great, natural, illustrative footage. They couldn't have done it without them. 

New Republic Senior Editor Julia Ioffe will be writing dispatches from Russia for the duration of the Olympics. For the entire collection of her pieces, click here.