On August 2, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin gave his first comment on the situation during his London visit. "There is nothing good in what they did but I don't think they should be judged too harshly," Putin told reporters adding that the girls’ fate should be decided in court and expressed hope that a ruling will be well-founded.
"If the girls were, let's say, in Israel, and profaned something there it wouldn't be so easy for them to leave. You know, there are some tough guys in Israel. If the girls desecrated some Muslim holy site, we wouldn't even have had time to detain them."
The Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said that Putin’s statements are careful and put no pressure on the court. A number of Western celebrities, like Danny DeVito, Sting, Peter Gabriel, The Who, Pet Shop Boys and RHCP expressed their support for the three girls: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina. They seem to consider their “punk prayer” an extravagant stunt or a kids’ prank. However, some people want the girls to be punished for offending the Orthodox believers. They are opposed by those who accuse Russia’s government of abusing human rights and claim that the case is politically biased. Russia’s prominent writer Ludmila Ulitskaya finds the charges are too severe.
"I think the maximum punishment should be a fine of 500-1,500 rubles for hooliganism. This is all so sad. The girls didn’t even breach the peace or disrupt a service as it was already over."
But a number of Russian artistic figures and writers, including the famous Valentin Rasputin, director Nikita Mikhalkov and singer Elena Vaenga have condemned the protest, saying that only those who have no respect for the century-old Russian history and its religion can justify the blasphemy. Journalist and expert in ethnocultural and religious policy Maxim Shevchenko says that the “performance” is a pure hooliganism.
"Dancing in a church and profaning it, offending the believers are two different things. Dancing and swearing near the main altar is profaning while dancing in a church is hooliganism. The video of the “prayer” uploaded on the Internet is not a criminal case in Russia. But the girls did dance in the Cathedral despite the will of the believers, and priests. This act saw now blessing so its hooliganism."
Israeli publicist Avigdor Eskin says that the anti-Putin opposition at home and abroad is attempting to benefit the issue. He adds that if the liberal opposition rests its ideology on such acts its morale is rather dubious.
Eskin is also surprised with Washington’s reaction. Recently, the State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said that Washington had "serious concerns about politically motivated prosecutions of the Russian opposition."
Eskin recalled a similar case in Israel. In 1997, artist Tatyana Soskina drew a painting insulting Prophet Muhammad and spent two years in jail for her art. No activists called to free her at that time. What is more - “punk prayer” triggered attacks by young radicals on Russian churches and clergy across the country.