AFP, Sochi :
The high profile members of punk group Pussy Riot came to Olympics host Sochi this week looking for trouble, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said Saturday after the women were filmed being beaten with a horsewhip.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, who were released from prison colonies last year, were shoved, pushed to the ground and whipped by Cossacks in Sochi on Wednesday.
The pair, who have been vocal opponents of the Sochi Games and called for a boycott, had earlier been detained by police in connection with a theft case but not charged.
The shocking images of them being violently whipped by a Cossack vigilante feature prominently in their new music video which savages President Vladimir Putin over the hosting of the Games.
“The girls came here with the specific aim of provoking conflict,” Kozak told reporters at the Games.
“They had looked for it for a long time and in the end they succeeded in having a conflict with the local residents,” he said.
But he added that the individual who carried out the whipping had been ordered to pay an administrative fine. He was never detained.
