Pussy Riots Members To Be Freed, Says Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that two members of protest-punk band Pussy Riot would be freed under the Government's new amnesty, hopefully bringing to end one of music's most controversial topics of the year.

The members, 24-year-old Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and 25-year-old Maria Alyokhina, were arrested after a protest against Putin and the Russian Orthodox church at Moscow's main cathedral last year, and were set to finish their two-year sentence March 2014.

They, alongside Greenpeace members arrested for a protest against Arctic oil drilling, will be covered under the amnesty which will see a number of people released before the country hosts the Winter Olympics in February next year.

Speaking to a news conference Putin, via Reuters, said, “It [the amnesty] is neither linked to Greenpeace, nor this group [Pussy Riot]… I was not sorry that they [the Pussy Riot members] ended up behind bars. I was sorry that they were engaged in such disgraceful behaviour, which in my view was degrading to the dignity of women. They went beyond all boundaries.”

Throughout their imprisonment there had been concerns that a Tolokonnikova had gone missing after appeals to the Court of Human Rights has been fruitless.