Freed Pussy Riot member says protests must be 'more cunning'

Newly released from Russian prison, Pussy Riot's Yekaterina Samutsevich said her protests against Vladimir Putin's rule had to become "more cunning" and that she would fight to free fellow band members still in jail.

In one of her first interviews since a judge suspended her two-year sentence on Wednesday, Samutsevich, 30, said she was trying to deal with public attention and increased scrutiny by the authorities.

"I want to continue the actions of Pussy Riot, but that means you have to be more careful and you have to be more cunning," she said on radio station Echo Moskvy.

"You have to understand that all your conversations are being listened to and your mail is being read," said Samutsevich, who spent time in prison reading books by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek and French thinker Michel Foucault.

In the interview she aimed broadsides at Putin's rule, saying it had grown too close to the Russian Orthodox Church.