Femen leader Oksana Shachko, 31, found dead after years of winding up Putin with topless feminist protests
The topless activist was found dead in her Paris flat on Monday
A FOUNDING member of controversial radical feminist movement Femen, Oksana Shachko, was found dead in her Paris apartment, yesterday July 23.
The 31-year-old from Ukraine became known for her topless protests with Femen which regularly challenged the policies of powerful groups and individuals.
These included President Putin, whose supporters are said to have once abducted her while he was visiting Shachko’s home country, it is claimed.
She later escaped to France, where her body was found with a note at her apartment on Monday.
Inna Shevchenko, a Femen member based in the French capital, said: "It is with great regret and deep pain that I must confirm the death of Oksana."
As Paris detectives launched an enquiry, friends paid tribute to the young woman.
Friend Anna Hutsol said: "We mourn together with her relatives and friends", adding that she was waiting for "the official version from the police."
Femen member Alisa Vinogradova told news agency Central European News: "We are shocked and waiting for the autopsy results."
Before her death, Ms Shachko posted on Instagram, saying: "You are fake," but it is not clear who was the target of her post.
Her close friend Valeriy Puzik wrote on Facebook: "I have known you since you were 16 and I never could imagine that you would take your own life... You were from another planet, a comet that is flying by. I am recalling a handful of memories about you, R.I.P."
There was no immediate comment from Paris police or prosecutors about her death and a post mortem is being carried out on her body to confirm the cause of death.
Since it was founded in Kiev in 2008, the Femen movement has won notoriety in Europe for its stands - usually topless - against sex tourism, homophobia and religious institutions.
Shachko was one of four feminists who a decade ago founded Femen in Ukraine, the eastern European state involved in a bitter territorial dispute with Putin’s Russia, which annexed its Crimean peninsula using military force in 2014.
Femen regularly organised topless protests against reactionary regimes, and the institutions that support them.
Now based in Paris, it claims to be an enemy of ‘patriarchy in its three manifestations – sexual exploitation of women, dictatorship and religion.’
In April 2013, five members launched a "topless ambush" of Putin as he visited the Hanover trade fair with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Two years earlier, Shachko herself briefly disappeared during a Putin visit to Ukraine, with her colleagues saying "unknown agents" believed to be linked to Putin had beaten her up.
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In 2011, she was also one of three Femen activists arrested in Belarus after staging a topless protest against President Alexander Lukashenko.
There were claims that the trio of women had their hair cut off by force, and then they were threatened with being set on fire.
Since moving to France in 2013, and being granted political refugee status, Shachko had officially ended her day-to-day work with Femen, and was trying to build up a career as an artist.
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