Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: wiki commons.

WSJ – Three members of a once-unheralded feminist group—whose anti-Kremlin protest inside Russia’s main Orthodox cathedral led to one of the most politically charged trials of the country’s post-Soviet era—were convicted of hooliganism Friday and sentenced to two years in prison.

The diminutive provocateurs, in handcuffs, stood in a glass-enclosed pen in a Moscow courtroom as Judge Marina Syrova announced her decision, ratifying what critics of President Vladimir Putin call a growing crackdown on dissent.

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