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 put his body on the line for previous high-profile protests. After two members of the Pussy Riot punk protest band were jailed for singing inside Moscow's main cathedral in 2011 he sewed his lips together, and he also wrapped his naked body in barbed wire outside a government building in St Petersburg.