AceShowbiz - Pussy Riot star and activist Maria Alekhina has left Russia for a theatre date in Scotland, despite a travel ban imposed by border police officials.

The punk star claimed she was told she wouldn't be able to board a flight bound for the U.K. on Wednesday, August 09 because she hadn't completed community service following a street protest arrest last month.

But now a tweet from the Pussy Riot collective suggests she "has found a way to escape, and she is flying to Edinburgh."

Alekhina was sentenced to 140 hours of community service for protesting outside the Moscow headquarters of the Federal Security Service.

Alekhina was one of two Pussy Riot stars who spent almost two years behind bars for staging a 2012 protest inside a Moscow church.