Artist could be charged for nailing his testicles to ground

A RUSSIAN performance artist could be charged will hooliganism after he nailed his testicles to a Red Square cobblestone in protest against the Kremlin's crackdown on political rights.

Eye-watering footage showed Pyotr Pavlensky sitting naked outside Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow before police covered him with a blanket and prised him free.

He was briefly hospitalised for a tetanus shot, visited a psychiatrist and spent the night in a police cell, but was unexpectedly released after a district court judge found error in the police paperwork.

If charged and then convicted the man could face five years in prison.