Topless protestor says Putin’s response confirms ‘he is stupid’

The Russian president’s reaction to being confronted by a topless protestor just confirms her belief that Vladimir Putin is stupid, she said yesterday.

On Monday, three members of the women’s rights group Femen, which has protested against Russia’s detention of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot around Europe, disrupted his visit to a trade fair in the German city of Hanover.

They stripped to the waist and shouted slogans calling Putin a “dictator” before being bundled away by security men.

“Regarding this performance, I liked it,” grinned Putin at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“I did not catch what they were shouting, I did not even see if they were blondes, brunettes or chestnut-haired.”

One of the three protestors, Alexandra Shevchenko told The Daily Telegraph that Putin’s reaction showed he is “really stupid”.

Ms Shevchenko, 24, said: “Putin is a bastard. If you’re a normal person you have to be against him.

“The most important [criticism] for us is human rights, the rights of women, this situation with Pussy Riot. Of course, we don’t want to say this is all he’s done — he has committed a lot of other crimes.

“I think his answer was really stupid. It was really in this Russian, post- USSR style. The president of a European country would never say something like — I like her, in such a sexual way. He does it because he’s a stupid man.”

Ms Shevchenko ran to Putin with words painted in black ink across her torso.

The slogan read: “Fuck you Putin”.

She chose those words carefully, she said, “because it’s really simple”.

Describing the moment she rushed towards Mr Putin, Ms Shevchenko said: “When I was running at him we were looking at each other’s eyes. He was very, very surprised and thinking in this moment, thinking he will do something with his security.”

After getting an earful from Chancellor Angela Merkel on the importance of democratic issues, Putin later arrived in Amsterdam to face an eyeful of protests from gay rights activists.

Rainbow flags were flying at half-staff around the Dutch city and rights groups staged a major protest against Russian gay rights policies.

In January, Russian lawmakers tentatively approved a bill that makes gay public events and the dissemination of information about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to minors punishable by fines of thousands of euros.