Russian feminist punk-rockers Pussy Riot have thrown their support behind the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, with frontwoman Nadezhda Tolokonnikova visiting the Team Bernie campaign office in Washington last week.

Wearing a Bernie for President t-shirt, Tolokonnikova announced on Twitter her support for the 74-year-old Democrat nominee, writing: "I love what you stands (sic) for" and "Viva Bernie!"

She told The Daily Beast she was in the process of writing a song for Mr Sanders.

"It would be a song more about his ideas and his ideology, rather than his personality," she said.

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Tolokonnikova and the Pussy Riot band shot to international attention in 2012 after three members were sent to prison for an anti-Putin song called Holy Mother, Throw Putin Out, which they performed guerilla-style in an Orthodox cathedral in Moscow.

The trio were critical of the Catholic Church's support for Mr Putin, whom they have compared to Adolf Hitler.

During the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi the group were filmed being beaten and whipped by Cossack militia armed with horsewhips while they attempted to perform their song Putin Will Teach You To Love The Motherland.

Earlier this month, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said there was "a special place in hell" for women who did not support Hillary Clinton.

But Mr Sanders' democratic-socialist policies have won him widespread support among young female voters.

A number of pro-feminism, pro-Sanders social media accounts, such as the Twitter handle Feminists 4 Bernie, have emerged during the Democrat primaries.

Despite the support, Mrs Clinton has taken a lead over Mr Sanders in the Democrat race after adding South Carolina to her campaign victories on Saturday.

Tolokonnikova also told The Daily Beast she was working on a song for Donald Trump, who she says has a lot in common with Mr Putin.

"If you go through the history on my browser, it will be like Urban Dictionary — asshole synonymn, douchebag synonymn, dickhead rhyme," she said.

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