Members of the punk group Pussy Riot, including Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in the blue balaclava and Maria Alekhina in the pink balaclava, are attacked by Cossack militia in Sochi, Russia on Feb. 19, 2014. The incident occurred outside a downtown Sochi restaurant, about 21 miles from where the Winter Olympics are being held.

Members of the punk group Pussy Riot, including Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in the blue balaclava and Maria Alekhina in the pink balaclava, are attacked by Cossack militia in Sochi, Russia on Feb. 19, 2014. The incident occurred outside a downtown Sochi restaurant, about 21 miles from where the Winter Olympics are being held.

You can’t blame the police for being slow to react, but as violently as they did? Our favourite political activist all-girl band Pussy Riot felt the crack of the whip (literally) during an attempted political riot at Sochi, where the winter Olympics are being held.

The performance was over before the music even started. Cossack militia members, an auxiliary police force in the region, attacked the Pussy Riot members with whips and removed their now-trademark balaclava masks in an incident that lasted less than five minutes. This comes one day after two members of Pussy Riot were arrested on suspicion of theft and later released near Sochi. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina had recently returned to their native Russia after a speaking tour that brought them to Europe and the United States.

Pussy Riot members tweeted about Wednesday’s incident shortly after, including pictures of injuries evidently suffered during the attack. It seems the group was attempting to perform their new protest song, “Putin will teach you to love the motherland,” but militia members took away their guitar before the performance began.

Pussy Riot has gone from a group to an international movement,” Alyokhina said during an appearance in New York on Feb. 5. “Anyone can be Pussy Riot. All you have to do is put on a mask and stage a protest.”

[Source: Pussy Riot Beat Down During Sochi Winter Olympics ]