First Pussy Riot band member Maria Alyokhinapunk walked free from jail on Monday. Now her band mate Nadejda Tolokonnikova is the second member of the punk band to be freed on the same day.

They were serving two-year sentences for a protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin in a Russian Orthodox church last year.

They were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for the “punk prayer” performance which criticised Putin’s ties to the Church, and had been due for release in March.

The girls was released under the amnesty the president has said would show the Russian state is humane.

Alyokhina immediately dismissed the Kremlin’s amnesty as a stunt that would not change her attitude to Putin.

A third band member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released last year when a judge suspended her sentence on appeal.