Two Young Mothers sent to Putin's Gulag for two years

Two of the women (left and middle) sentenced to two years.

I have a friend who loves reading Russian novels. I cannot bring myself to do the same, not even on the sunniest day. Life in Russian sucks, then it gets worse.

I cannot imagine how bad it will be for the two young women Vladimir Putin  is sending to a Russian gulag for two years of hard labor. They are both mothers.

What did they do? In an earlier post I wrote that all they did was conduct a peaceful protest at a Russian Orthodox Church. They picked the venue to exhibit how the church is turning a blind eye to Putin's crackdown on human rights in Russia.

Into this environment, three young woman decided to protest when no one else would. Their punk theatre ensemble was little more than a dance with their music and lyrics.

I have read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and enough John LeCarre, however, to understand what horrors lie ahead of the women.

While one of the three girls was freed last week, she said that her release was part of a clever ploy to cause divisiveness among the three and dissuade other women from protesting.s

The harsh sentencing is but the beginning of two years at a "correctional penal colony", a phrase reminiscent of Stalin's brutal repression of dissidents in which some 12 million Russians disappeared into the gulags over several decades. 

The girls will be removed from Moscow and subjected to round-the-clock mental manipulation. Putin is familiar with the techniques, having carved his career in politics from years as a KGB thug. And now he's running the country -- again.

The Russian Orthodox Church appealed to the young women to recant. The women answered that they had committed no crime other than to protest the regime of Vladimir Putin.

What is more amazing is that Russia still holds a veto at the UN.