Femen Brings Its Brand of Topless, Feminist Crazy to Times Square in Protest of Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine

Ukrainian feminist group
Femen bared their perennially-painted breasts in Times Square
Thursday as part of an international protest campaign against

the Russian forces in Crimea. “Fuck Putin!” Femen organizer
Inna Shevchenko and her bevy of topless rad-fems yelled as they
ripped apart Russian flags, hailed “the glory of the Ukraine,” and
implored the U.S. and the European Union to “stop talking (and)
start acting.”  

An iota of background on Femen: It’s a collection of militant
and mostly blonde Ukrainian women who travel the world (at
the behest of a man named Victor Svyatski) getting topless and
making a fuss over whatever cause is hot that week. As you can
probably tell, I am no great fan. Femen’s philosophy is incoherent,
and its tactics nonsensical—but they do know how to create a
spectacle. Bet the Times Square tourists weren’t expecting to
encounter this on their way between the faux Ray-Ban booth and the
wax museum: 

In a Starbucks after the protest, Shevchenko told
Vice that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions
weren’t surprising. “He wants to become a tsar. He wants to have an
empire,” she said.

“He’s not the guy who wants to care about money, like a small
politician like [Viktor] Yanukovych, who wants to put all the gold
in his apartment. … He’s not about money. He’s about power.”
 

Meanwhile, back in Crimea, Femen activists faced a much rougher
time than counterparts protesting stateside. Two
were arrested. A statement on the Femen
website says activists were also “severely beaten” by
“pro-Russian activists.”