Pussy Riot Members Thank Madonna, Burn Photo of Vladimir Putin (Video)

MOSCOW – Members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot have released a new video, in which they thank prominent Western artists for support for their three jailed colleagues and burn a portrait of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, a Russian TV channel admitted having cut out a part of an interview with French singer Mireille Mathieu, in which she called for clemency towards the jailed punk rockers.

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The video was released on YouTube and published on MTV’s website. The network said it was released in response to a list of questions sent to the band, in which MTV asked the Pussy Riot members who are still at large "to respond to the growing list of artists who have shown solidarity with the wave of international outrage" against the recent court verdict which sent three Pussy Riot members to prison.

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In the video, filmed in an unidentified place, several young women featuring brightly colored tights and balaclavas unfurl a banner with their band’s name on a wall of an abandoned building and thank Madonna, Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day, who earlier expressed support for Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich. Then they burn a portrait of Putin, which is located next to that of Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko.

The three women were jailed after Pussy Riot’s "punk prayer" at Moscow’s Christ the Savior cathedral last March and sentenced to two-year prison terms last month.

Pussy Riot has been a loose group of musicians and singers, and their exact number and identities remain unknown, apart from Alyokhina, Tolokonnikova and Samutsevich. Late last month, there were reports that two Pussy Riot members fled Russia.

Meanwhile, the Pussy Riot case continues to stir up controversy in Russia. On August 30, the Russian station TV Tsentr aired an interview with Mathieu, in which the singer condemned Pussy Riot’s cathedral performance. A week later, Mathieu’s entourage discovered that the singer’s last phrase, in which she still called for clemency for the jailed punk rockers, had been cut out, the French newspaper Figaro reported.

Confronted by French journalists, Vladislav Shekoyan, director of morning programs at TV Tsentr, eventually admitted that the phrase had actually been cut out. However, he said, it was due to a "mistake" by "a young reporter."

Watch the Pussy Riot clip below.