Brian Whitmore, FE/RL March 05, 2012 When Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went to the polls in Russia's weekend presidential election, he accidentally dropped his ballot paper on the floor before casting his vote. Shortly after he left the polling station, activists from the Ukrainian women's rights group Femen showed up, stripped off their shirts, and tried to steal the ballot box while chanting "Putin is a thief" before being hauled off by police. Minor indignities for the Russian leader, to be sure. But the symbolism was lost on few. Putin claimed a decisive victory >>>

Three feminist activities from Ukraine who paraded half naked at a polling station to protest against Vladimir Putin will be expelled from the country. The women, members of the Femen radical feminist group, stripped to their waists and paraded at a polling station to draw attention to widespread claims of vote-rigging at the presidential polls. They had "I steal for Putin" written on their bodies and shouted anti-Putin slogans. Police dragged them away minutes before Putin and his wife arrived to cast their vote in an election already considered to be in the bag for the incumbent prime minister. In >>>

18:15 05/03/2012 The Gagarinsky District Court of Moscow upheld on Monday the administrative arrest ranging from five to twelve days of the Ukrainian FEMEN movement activists, who were detained for stripping at a Moscow polling station on Sunday, lawyer Violetta Volkova told. She said the court shrugged off the defense's arguments that the act of stripping was politically motivated, and considered it an act of exhibitionism.The court also dismissed the defense's motion for lighter charges against the activists. The incident occurred at a polling station at the Russian Academy of Sciences where >>>