kyiv, ukraine — Ukrainian feminist activists staged a topless protest Friday outside the Embassy of Iran, which Kyiv and the West say is arming Russia.
Ukraine’s Femen group is a feminist art collective that has for years staged stunts in Ukraine and abroad, with its trademark move being women appearing with their chests bare, protest slogans written across their bodies.
Kyiv has branded Iran an “accomplice” in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and regularly reports finding fragments of Iranian Shahed drones used by Moscow in attacks targeting civilian infrastructure.
AFP saw two activists take their shirts off near the Iranian Embassy building in Kyiv, chanting and displaying anti-Iran and anti-Russia slogans written on their bodies.
Western governments have accused Iran of supplying Moscow with both drones and missiles, which Tehran has repeatedly denied.
At the U.N. last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced Russia involving authoritarian states Iran and North Korea — also widely believed to be arming Russia — in Moscow’s more than two-year invasion of his country.
“Russia has no legitimate reason — none at all — for making Iran and North Korea de facto accomplices in its criminal war in Europe, with their weapons killing us, killing Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said.
Western countries have imposed sanctions on Iran’s air transport links over its alleged supply of ballistic missiles to Russia for use in Ukraine.
Femen, which campaigns for women’s rights and against sexism and conservative Orthodoxy, originated in Ukraine but now also has branches in other countries.
It has staged numerous stunts, including two of its activists lunging at Russian President Vladimir Putin on a visit to Germany in 2013 shouting “dictator!”
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