Naked artist nails scrotum to ground in protest at Moscow's Red Square

A naked Russian artist nailed his own testicles to the ground in a bizarre protest against his country's authoritarian regime.

Pyotr Pavelnsky hammered a large metal nail through his scrotum and into the cobblestones in front of Moscow's Red Square as hundreds of horrified tourists watched on.

Police eventually covered him up with a blanket before removing him from the scene.

He was taken to a clinic for treatment and placed under arrest.

In a statement posted on the grani.ru website prior to the demonstration, Mr Pavlensky had written: "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 artist has previously performed painful protests to highlight political causes.

In 2011 he sewed his lips together to highlight the plight of the jailed Pussy Riot group and he later wrapped his naked body in barbed wire outside a government building in St Petersburg.