Pussy Riot, the all-female Russian punk-rock protest group, is a thorn in Vladimir Putin’s side. But their visage of feminist rebellion against Russia’s oppressive, male-dominated oligarchy, is a sharp contrast to their counterpart, Mariia Butina, the fetching Russian spy. The contrast was brought into sharp focus this week with Butina’s arrest for acting as a clandestine intermediary between the Kremlin and American officials, most notably those with the shadowy National Rifle Association (NRA).
Keith Girard has four decades of experience as an award-winning reporter, editor-in-chief, and senior media executive. Keith’s career began in Washington, D.C., where he was a reporter for The Washington Post and a contributing editor for Regardie’s and Washingtonian magazines. He also worked as a writer/producer in CNN’s Washington Bureau and has written non-fiction books on the U.S. Marines in the Gulf War and Donald Trump and two novels, “The Heidelberg Conundrum” and “The Curse of Northam Bay.”