9:26 AM PDT 4/3/2014

THR Staff 

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina

Gearing up (click here) for her annual Women in the World summit, Tina Brown appeared Thursday alongside the members of Russian activist band Pussy Riot on the Today show with Matt Lauer.

The veteran magazine editor articulated why Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina are "game changers," while the duo focused their attention on pointing out the ills of Russian penal colony system. 

"It wouldn't be for the people who really were saying everything they could about us to support us, things would be completely different," Alyokhina said through a translator. "And it might have been that we wouldn't be healthy and sane and alive."...