PUSSY RIOT PUT IT UP TO PUTIN IN NEW ANTI-WAR VIDEO

Pussy Riot members Maria Alekhina, Olga Borisova, Diana Burkot and Taso Pletner mark Christmas with the release today of their anti-war video for 'Mama, Don't Watch TV'.

It's a bold, brave statement given the lengthy jail sentences that are being handed out to Russians voicing their opposition to the war in Ukraine. The band will surely have factored this in when taking their very public stance against their country's aggression.

"This song is our statement against the war that Putin started in Ukraine," Pussy Riot tell us. "Since the beginning of the war, on February 24, military censorship has been introduced in Russia. It is forbidden to call a war a war, publications of materials about the war that have not been verified by the Kremlin are prohibited. Go to hell, we'll tell the truth!

"This is the music of our anger, indignation, disagreement, a reproachful desperate cry against Putin's bloodthirsty puppets, led by a real cannibal monster, whose place is in the infinity of fierce hellish flames on the bones of the victims of this terrible war.

"The chorus is based on the words of a captured Russian conscript soldier who, in a telephone conversation with his mother, said 'Mom, there are no Nazis here, don't watch TV.' Russian propaganda daily poisons the hearts of people with hatred. The Law on Foreign Agents is used to silence opposition activists and journalists, to stop the activities of the last independent human rights organizations.

"Those who oppose Putin are imprisoned, poisoned with military poisons and killed. The tradition of political poisoning for more than 100 years, "laboratory x" - the first laboratory of military poisons created by the NKVD. Opposition figures of anti-government movements became victims of the 'experiments'. Putin and the FSB are proud of this 'tradition' and continue it: Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Skripal, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Pyotr Verzilov, Alexei Navalny.

"We are against this disgraceful war waged by Putin, and to stop this war we must unite, unite against the fascist Putin regime.

"The West is still sponsoring this war by buying oil and gas from Putin. With this money he is beating us, imprisoning us, attacking us with military poison and murdering us. With this money he is waging war.

"We call for:

1. An Embargo on the purchase of Russian oil and gas, on the sale of weapons and police ammunition to Russia.

2. Arrest the western bank accounts and property of Russian officials and oligarchs and introduce personal sanctions against them.

3. An international tribunal to try Vladimir Putin, employees of Russian state propaganda, army officers and everyone who is responsible for the genocide of the Ukrainian nation.

"For people in Russia:

Please don't participate in this war!

Do not take mobilization notices, do not go to the military commissariat, do not listen to propaganda!

Every action against this war is important."