Pussy Riot Members Masha and Nadya Finally Released. (Russia)

I wrote a blog post about a month and a half ago about Russian punk movement, "Pussy Riot", having watched the documentary 'Pussy Riot; A Punk Prayer'. The documentary had a significant effect on me and I continued to follow developments in their imprisonment for the following month and a bit.I woke up on Monday morning and checked my twitter account to discover that Masha had been released and was giving various interviews whilst Nadya was due to be released within the next half an hour.

Having gone on hunger strike in a protest against conditions in her prison, Nadya Tolokonnikova was 'transferred' to a different prison, however, she never made it to the next prison and disappeared in transit for around two weeks. There was much speculation that she was in a Siberian Gulag, the IK 50 prison in Nizhny Ingash, however, having travelled 3000 miles to find her, her husband discovered she was not there. What was scariest about her disappearance was that it felt so possible to me that she could have been dead- killed by the Russian government- in a bid to silence her protest and prevent a further uprising. Would they have done such a thing?

Well evidently not, as Putin has issued their release just two months before the end of the girls' two year sentence. Masha, nevertheless, denounced her release by a Kremlin-backed amnesty as a mere "publicity stunt". Putin is also looking to release many members of the Arctic 30, Greenpeace activists imprisoned for 'piracy', and Masha believes Putin is attempting to improve his country's image with the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia so close around the corner.

Whilst the release of these Pussy Riot members is a great victory, there is a bitter undertone which demonstrates the unimproved state of their country despite their two years imprisonment. On her release, Tolokonnikova stated: "I am calling for a boycott [of the Olympics] for honesty. I'm calling [European countries] not to give in for fear of disrupting oil and gas deliveries from Russia[...] I don't consider this time spent in prison wasted. I have acquired a unique experience and it will be much easier for me to engage in human rights activities than before. I have matured and learned about the state from within. I have seen this small totalitarian machine as it is from the inside."