Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, two members of the Russian protest group Pussy Riot, were released from prison Monday following the passage of an amnesty law in the country that was signed by President Vladimir Putin last week.

But the taste of freedom didn’t strip either woman of their harsh critique of Putin or the repressive Russian establishment he represents.

Upon her release, Alyokhina immediately slammed the president and called the amnesty bill nothing but a public relations ploy by the Putin government.

“I do not think it is a humanitarian act, I think it is a PR stunt,” the twenty-five year-old artist and political activists said by telephone to the Russian Internet and TV channel Dozhd. “My attitude to the president has not changed.”

Going further, Alyokhina told reporters that if she could have resisted the order, she would have. “If I had a chance to turn it down, I would have done it, no doubt about that,” she told Dozhd. “This is not an amnesty. This is a hoax and a PR move.”

Released separately later in the day, Tolokonnikova was also defiant, shouting “Russia without Putin” as she emerged from a detention facility in Siberia.