MOSCOW, February 18 - RAPSI. The Moscow City Court has upheld the ruling of the lower court to dismiss the compensation lawsuit filed by Novosibirsk resident Irina Ruzankina against the Pussy Riot punk rock group, the court told RAPSI.

The court has dismissed Ruzankina's lawyers' appeal against the ruling of the Kuntsevo District Court in Moscow, which in September and October last year dismissed three lawsuits filed against the group for moral damages.

The other two lawsuits were submitted by Yury Zadoy, a resident of Berdsk, a town near Novosibirsk, and co-plaintiff Ivan Krasnitsky from Novosibirsk.

All three claimants said they were offended by the Pussy Riot's protest song in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral and sought 30,000 rubles (around $1,000) in compensation.

In late February 2012, five young women wearing brightly colored balaclavas performed a "punk rock" prayer in the altar of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral. An edited video of their performance was posted on the Internet and caused a public outcry.

The Khamovniki District Court sentenced three Pussy Riot members to two years in prison on August 17, 2012. The Moscow City Court later commuted Samutsevich's sentence from two years in prison to immediate release on probation, due to the fact that she was detained by security prior to reaching the stage and did not participate in the punk prayer. The judge left Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova's sentences unchanged.