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Former Pussy Riot Members Meet US Ambassador To UN, Diplomatic Incident On Twitter Follows

By Patricia Didelot
Published on: 23:56 PST, Feb 6, 2014

The controversial punk-rock Russian band Pussy Riot, the all-girl, anti-Putin group, is creating a diplomatic stand-off…on Twitter, after a meeting two of its former members had with the US ambassador to the United Nations.

This tweet by Samantha Powers — US ambassador to the UN — started the back and forth between the American and Russian diplomats:

Pussy Riot is a touchy subject for the Russian government, the arrest of three of its members and subsequent uproar from the music industry all over the world, brought attention to Putin’s harsh stance on dissent.

Samantha Powers started an international incident when she shared the photo of her meeting with the two formerly imprisoned band members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, both of whom were released in December.

In her next tweet ambassador Powers says she asked the Pussy Riot members about their time in a Russian prison:

As the world’s attention is focused on the Sochi Olympic Games in Russia, which have their opening ceremony today, the meeting is clearly controversial and at a press conference later that day the Russian UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, suggested at a press conference that ambassador Powers should join the Pussy Riot.

Powers once again took to Twitter in a cheeky response to Churkin, asking if he would join a potential tour:

And later on added:

We don’t know if Churkin has a sense of humor, but Samantha Powers was clearly poking some fun at her Russian counterpart in her reply, however, Russians are certain to be upset at the very public show of support of the anti-government band.

The Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were jailed in February 2012 at the infamous Matrosskaya Tishina prison — where dissidents are held — for singing a song, critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Samutsevich was released at the end of 2012.

The spat between the US and UN ambassador about the Pussy Riot meeting was not the only headache Russia got, relating the band, on the first full day of Olympics competition.

As reported by The Inquisitr on Thursday, the two band members have been expelled from the band because they had strayed from the band’s original vision.

In what could be a first sign of protest by a Russian Olympian, snowboarder Alexei Sobolev sported an image on his snowboard resembling that of “a female figure in a balaclava wielding a knife.”

The image is associated with Pussy Riot because at the concert that resulted in their arrest its members were wearing balaclavas.

Asked whether he was staging a protest and supporting the Pussy Riot, Sobolev said: “Anything is possible, I wasn’t the designer.”

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