Ilya Naymushin/Reuters
Some good news just before Christmas. The two jailed members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot were released from prison Monday and granted amnesty—although one of the two women, Masha Alyokhina, 25, refused to give Russian President Vladimir Putin any credit. “I do not think it is a humanitarian act, I think it is a PR stunt,” Alyokhina said. Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were convicted last year of hooliganism for a “punk prayer” protest at a church that criticized Putin. Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were both sentenced to two years in prison, while Samutsevich received a suspended sentence. Tolokonnikova went on a hunger strike in September to protest the conditions at the penal colony, and her husband said last month she disappeared. She was found at a remote hospital three weeks later.