The law in Russia bans "propaganda of homosexuality," which is defined as dissemination of information that can cause harm to the spiritual or physical development of children, including forming in them the erroneous impression of the social equality of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations. It's a law that actually enshrines second-class citizenship - it makes it a crime to claim social equality.

One of the things that I really value about Russian culture is that on the private level it allows for a huge amount of variety and individuality with regards to family structure.

Russian law on banning nontraditional relationships basically says you cannot have any portrayal, neutral or positive, of homosexual relationships or nontraditional families, period. And you also cannot have negative portrayals of heterosexual relationships. So along the way, the law completely quashes any kind of public discussion on domestic violence. No discussion of relationships at all, unless you want to showcase a heterosexual love story, that preferably involves reproduction.

The rest of Russia is watching the same television that Vladimir Putin is watching. As far as they're concerned, Pussy Riot was rightly convicted of blasphemy, and Putin has now finally showed some mercy and let them out early so they could spend New Year's with their kids. He was nice to them even though they are really nasty. That's the dominant view. This really is a war and the front line is really firm.

With Pussy Riot - this was a prank! It was a brilliant, artistically gifted prank. But they didn't expect to go to prison! They were college girls who became political prisoners for two years. That makes them very similar to the people who were "just going to a protest one day" and got arrested. They had no idea they were risking the rest of their lives. Because you're never the same after you've spent two years in a gulag.

Take the people facing charges in connection with the protests that occurred on the eve of Vladimir Putin's third-term inauguration, May 6, 2012. Hundreds were arrested but what's important is that most of those charged are not leaders in the movement. In fact, only one is an identifiable leader. The rest are rank-and-file activists, or people who just came to the protest. This indicates a very particular kind of crackdown - it communicates the message that there's no safe zone.

It is the first time since 1993 that Russians have come out into the streets without an explicit permission from the government to do so. The main difference between the protests of 2011-2012 and these protests today is that they didn't have permits. These were - the people who were coming out into the streets were very young people, for the most part, who knew that they were all risking arrest. It's an extraordinary event.