Pussy Riot join Twitter in English, tweet jokes

Two Pussy Riot (opens in new tab) members have signed up for a new English Twitter account.

Freed activists Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina previously tweeted in Russian from their personal accounts since being released from prison (opens in new tab) in December.

Their first English tweet read: "Russia is not China or Iran YET, so since we can still use Twitter, we will give a shot at running it in English, so hi to everyone here!"

The pair also hit out at Wall Street, Vladimir Putin and "Capital Hell", while also sharing a series of humorous tweets.

Her director Spike Jonze appears with them in one photo, with the caption: "We decided with Spike Jonze that Pussy Riot are true Jackass-style girls."

In March, the duo were attacked at a McDonald's restaurant (opens in new tab) in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, where they had visited to take part in a prison protest alongside other activists.

They previously spent two years in jail, after being convicted of hooliganism for singing protest songs in a cathedral. A third member of the group, Yekaterina Samutsevitch, was freed on appeal in October 2012.

Photo credit: © Getty Images / Roslan Rahman/AFP