MOSCOW, July 31 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has pardoned two women, who had earlier received prison terms for treason, according to the official website of legal information.

The pardon decree will take effect after ten days from its official publication.

Marina Dzhandzhgava was sentenced to 12 years behind bars in 2013; Annik Kesyan was given an 8-year prison term in 2014, the website of unofficial human rights group of lawyers and journalists Team 29 reads. They were convicted of sending messages allegedly containing information about a railroad train with war equipment bounding for the Republic of Abkhazia in 2008.

In March 2017, Putin pardoned another woman, Oksana Sevastidi, who had been sentenced to 7 years in prison for the same crime.

According to Sevastidi’s lawyer Ivan Pavlov, it was not the first case opened on charges of treason because of SMS-messages sent shortly before the military operation in Georgia resulted in Russian recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.