You're reading: The Father Of FEMEN

The brain behind the “sextremist” FEMEN group, the topless women protesters who have gained international fame and scorn, turns out to be a man. At least that is the revelation made in a new documentary called “Ukraine Is Not A Brothel.”

In the hour-long documentary, previewed online by the Kyiv Post but not available yet in Ukraine, Australian film director Kitty Green identifies Ukrainian Viktor Sviatskiy, 34, as the architect of FEMEN’s unusual protests since the group’s founding in 2008.

The release of the film came as FEMEN complained of being hounded out of Ukraine by physical violence and repression. They allege harassment ordered by government authorities in Ukraine and Russia. The group’s leaders have now relocated to France. Government officials either did not respond to the Kyiv Post’s requests for comments or denied any campaign against FEMEN.

Green spent 14 months living in Kyiv with FEMEN activists. She was able to gain their trust and conduct a revealing interview with Sviatskiy, who cannot articulate clearly why he founded the group other than a “deep subconscious” desire for new sexual relationships with women. Through his lawyer, Sviatskiy refused to talk with the Kyiv Post.

FEMEN has always been tight-lipped about who leads and finances the group, creating the image that the female founding Ukrainians Anna Hutsol, Alexandra Shevchenko and Inna Shevchenko ran the show.

However, in the documentary screened at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 4, Sviatskiy is portrayed as calling the shots in many ways, including selecting members based on physical beauty and directing protests. “I am a patriarch in an organization against patriarchy,” he says.

Viktor Sviatskiy in a screenshot from “Ukraine Is Not A Brothel”

He denigrates FEMEN members in the film and, near the end, is shown launching a verbal tirade against them for not following his instructions during a protest.

“They don’t have the strength of character. They don’t even have the desire to be strong,” the Khmelnytskyi native says. “Instead they show submissiveness, spinelessness, lack of punctuality, and many other factors which prevent them from becoming political activists. These are qualities that were essential to teach them.”

Speaking to the Kyiv Post by phone from Venice, Green described Sviatskiy as a “highly intelligent” man with revolutionary and grandiose ambitions. “He has a messiah complex,” Green said. “He thinks he’s God, and that he can treat anyone and everyone how he wants. He wants to be like (Vladimir) Lenin and (Karl) Marx. He’s a very Soviet man.”

Activist Alexandra Shevchenko in the film likened the group’s relationship with Sviatskiy to the “Stockholm Syndrome,” in which prisoners empathize with their captors.

“We felt ashamed before and we were afraid to say anything,” she said. “But we opened up today (at the Venice Film Festival screening) and told the truth, that we were victims of this patriarch, like the people for whom we fight.”

Alexandra Shevchenko says she is surrounded now by close friends and the relative safety of her new home in Paris.

FEMEN activists, including Alexandra Shevchenko (R), pose during a photo session at the premiere of “Ukraine Is Not A Brothel,” an hour-long documentary directed by Australian Kitty Green about the radical feminist group known for staging topless political protests. The film, presented at the 70th Venice Film Festival on Sept. 4 at Venice Lido, outs Ukrainian Viktor Sviatskiy as being the head of the group that burst on the scene more than five years ago.

She and three other FEMEN members fled Ukraine on Aug. 29, fearing charges would be brought against them in connection with a police raid on their Kyiv headquarters. Police say they found weapons and pictures of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill with crosshairs drawn over their faces on Aug. 27. FEMEN said the items were planted by officers. “Our bodies are our only weapons,” Alexandra Shevchenko said.

That same day the group announced it would shutter its Kyiv office, complaining that its members have been “systematically harassed, severely beaten, kidnapped, and repeatedly given threats” by Ukrainian and Russian authorities.

Kremlin officials and Russia’s Federal Security Service could not be reached to comment on FEMEN’s allegations of harassment, nor could the Security Service of Ukraine. President Viktor Yanukovych’s press service offered something of a non-denial denial, saying that he “pays great attention to the development of civil society and NGO activities.”

Alexandra Shevchenko, Hutsol and Sviatskiy were attacked by unknown assailants on Aug. 17 near an Odesa apartment where they were staying while on vacation. Sviatskiy also was beaten near FEMEN’s Kyiv office at the end of July, sustaining injuries to his face that forced him to spend two weeks in a hospital.

Hutsol was attacked near her apartment shortly afterwards. Her assailants punched her in the face and stole her dog. At a Kyiv bar that same night, she was attacked again and her laptop containing FEMEN documents was taken.

The assaults follow the arrests of activists Alexandra Shevchenko, Yana Zhdanova and Oksana Shachko, as well as an accompanying journalist, on July 27. The four were ordered by a Kyiv court to pay fines before being released.

Members say they have had enough of Ukraine. “I think we will ask for asylum in France,” Alexandra Shevchenko said.

The four women will join Inna Shevchenko, who fled to France last year after she used a chainsaw to cut down a cross in Kyiv to protest the jailing of Russian punk rockers Pussy Riot.

FEMEN’s exit from Ukraine marks the first time since the group’s inception five years ago that all leading members reside outside the nation. The group has protested against sex tourism in Ukraine, dictators, the denial of visas to Ukrainian women by India, female circumcision in Africa and the Catholic Church’s anti-gay stance. In Turkey, the group protested domestic violence, while in London it stood against “violent” Islamic states.

The group’s credibility has suffered as many people began to see FEMEN as willing to protest anything in exchange for financial backing. The exposure of a verbally abusive man as the group’s de facto leader is likely to damage the organization’s reputation further.

“This message should be clear – FEMEN is fake,” said Olexiy Haran, a political science professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached at [email protected].