WARING: GRAPHIC VIDEO
A Russian man was arrested and hospitalised after stripping naked and then nailing his testicles to a cobblestone in Red Square. The performance artist, Pyotr Pavlensky, carried out the act in protest at what he described in a statement as Russia’s descent into a "police state".
Writing on the grani.ru website, Pavlensky said: "A naked artist, looking at his balls nailed to the Kremlin pavement, is a metaphor for the apathy, political indifference, and fatalism of contemporary Russian society."
The act of self-mutilation took place close to Lenin’s mausoleum in the centre of Moscow’s iconic square. According to AFP, 29-year-old Pavlensky has carried out similar acts in the past, including sewing his lips together in demonstration against the jailing of two members of Pussy Riot, and wrapping his body in barb wire outside a government building.