MOSCOW, August 3 (RIA Novosti) – Russian authorities have cancelled the performance of a US rock band in southern Russia over the desecration of the Russian national flag by one of the band’s musicians during a concert in Ukraine.
The decision has been made by Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky after consultations with officials from the Krasnodar region, where the Bloodhound Gang rock group was scheduled to stage a concert during the KUBANA music festival.
"The Bloodhound Gang rockers are packing their bags. These idiots will not perform in Kuban," Medinsky wrote in his Twitter blog on Friday.
The incident with the Russian flag took place during Bloodhound Gang performance in the Ukrainian port of Odessa on July 31. A video clip, posted on YouTube, pictures the band’s bass guitar player Jared Hasselhoff shoving the flag inside his pants and literally wiping his behind with it.
Another YouTube clip showed the band’s lead singer Jimmy Pop shouting ‘Fuck Russia’ to the excitement of raging Ukrainian fans during a concert in Kiev a day earlier.
The clips infuriated many Russian online users who took the musicians’ acts as personal offense to their national pride.
The band later apologized for the flag incident but their attempts to make amendments with the Russian authorities did not seem to work.
