Two Pussy Riot members flee Russia

While three members of the Russian punk collective Pussy Riot have been imprisoned on “hooliganism” charges, at least two others have reportedly fled the country to escape similar prosecution.

The charges stem from the group’s February protest inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, where five members of the feminist collective staged a performance-art raid tied to their song “Mother of God, Drive Putin Out.”

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich have each been sentenced to two years in prison for the protest, which has been widely criticized as a transparent abuse of power and an attempt to silence critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.

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But while those three received much of the media attention after the protest, Pussy Riot actually counts more than a dozen members in its official ranks -- and potentially, an infinite number, if you include the impromptu satellite chapters of the balaclava-clad collective. The group announced on Twitter that two members -- it’s unknown yet whether they were the remaining two from the church protest -- have successfully gotten out of the country.

The members’ arrest has done little to stem the group’s influence. International media widely circulated their powerful closing statements from the trial, and even as the judge delivered the verdict, fellow members played Pussy Riot’s single “Putin Sets the Fires of Revolution” from a stereo in a nearby apartment building.

The group also announced that it was actively “recruiting foreign feminists to prepare new protest actions.”

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