a couple of years ago, there was a fiasco around an "art collective" (it's questionable....) called pussy riot doing a performance piece outside a church in russia. this was misreported in the news as a crackdown by putin. in fact, the members did go to jail for some time. in order to understand what actually happened with pussy riot, you should consult this story, as it appears to at least be being reported correctly.

pussy riot was never charged with pissing off putin. they were charged with the exact same thing - being offensive to the church.

the point is that, while you should be concerned about freedom of expression in russia, you need to look at the real culprit, here, which is the increasing level of power being concentrated in the hands of the orthodox church.

the church is out of control. but, the scary part is that it actually has public support.