 In response to questions posed by The Guardian and handed to the band via their lawyer , Pussy Riot accused Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church of orchestrating the case . Samutsevich said in December 2012 that " more than anything , what many people didn 't see during the trial were those moments when our ' right to defence ' was violated . It 's not that we were helpless , it was a situation of despair . " In an interview with The Guardian , she continued : " The trial was built in such a way that we couldn 't defend ourselves . They didn 't listen to us . We could have sat downstairs , where you wait till you 're taken to the courtroom , and not go in at all and everything would 've gone the same way . The fact that we took part physically [ in the trial ] didn 't actually change anything . " 
