The bizarre propaganda tactics of Vladimir Putin, Russia's president-elect, may have raised some eyebrows recently, but opponents have been (cheerfully) giving him a run for his money.

Introducing Pussy Riot – or, as one Russian website has translated their name, "Uprising of the Uterus": the "pop up" female punk band who don fluorescent masks and mini-dresses to perform songs like “Putin wet his pants” in the middle of Red Square, and “Holy Mother, Blessed Virgin, Expel Putin!” next to the altar at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Here's the latter event, in February:

Their tactics have, unsurprisingly offended huge numbers of Russia's conservatives, but few can deny their impact. And while the targets of their ire are broader than just Putin (try all of Russia's corrupt patriarchy), it was the announcement by Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev that they would swap jobs that prompted the band to form. “It was so disappointing to us, it showed us what kind of a country we were living in,” one band member told the Financial Times last week.

For them, the incoming president has become a symbol of all that was wrong with the country. “[Putin] has repeatedly made sexist statements that the main task of women is childbearing and being in a passive position relative to men,” she added.

Three of the group's members now face up to seven years in jail for their defiant church protest: perhaps a measure of how much they have riled the powers that be. But this is almost certainly not the last we've heard of them. They currently have 11 band members, and membership is open to anyone. “You don’t have to sing very well," another band member told daily newspaper Moskovskie Novosti. "It’s punk. You just scream a lot.”

Further reading: Protest seems to be becoming fashionable. Kseniya Sobchak, Russia's high-life tabloid queen (and a family friend of Putin's), is also taking on the regime. The New York Times has a profile: The "It girl" who's carefully challenging Putin.