Photo: Russian President, German Chancellor Confronted By nakéd Female Protesters In Germany...............

The Russian president was confronted by a unclad protester with an obscene slogan insulting Mr Putin painted on her back – and, he admitted, he “liked” it.

Mr Putin was with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at at a trade fair in Hanover when the woman tried to push her way through to an amused-looking Mr Putin, but was blocked by aides. Her back was painted with an obscene slogan in Cyrillic script directed against the Russian president.

The activist was with two other women who also stri*ped to the waist and shouted slogans calling the Russian leader a “dictator”.

The women appeared to be members of the feminist group Femen, which has staged unclad protests against the s*x industry and religious institutions.

Speaking at a press conference afterwards, Mr Putin said: “As for the protest, I liked it. In principle, we knew that such a protest was being prepared.”

He said the organisers of the Hanover event should “say thank you to the Ukrainian girls, they helped you promote the trade fair.”

“To be honest, I didn’t really hear what they were shouting because the security [guards] were very tough. These huge guys fell on the lasses. That seemed not right to me, they could have been handled more gently,” he added.

Mr Putin appeared to show a flash of his well-known salty humour, adding: “I didn’t make out whether they were blondes, chestnut-haired or brunettes.”

The Russian president said protests by Femen activists were nothing new. “We’ve all got used to these demonstrations and I don’t see anything terrible here,” he said.

He however added: “If someone wants to debate political questions, then it’s better to do it clothed rather than getting undressed. You should undress in other places, such as on nudist beaches.”

Femen had on their Facebook page, said the protest was an “anti-dictatorial attack on Putin”. The group criticised the Kremlin, Russia’s Federal Security Service and the Russian Orthodox Church, saying that Femen was against “dictatorship, homophobia and theocracy”.

The group has criticized Mr Putin over the arrest and conviction of the feminist punk band p*ssy Riot, for performing an anti-Putin song in a Moscow cathedral last year.

Russia has urged German authorities to punish the protesters. “This is ordinary hooliganism and unfortunately it happens all over the world, in any city. One needs to punish (them),” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.