Tweeting Putin, stripping off at Fashion Week and mobbing the Turkish PM! FEMEN leader reveals what it takes to be part of the militant feminist group

• Inna Shevchenko, 23, is one of the founder members of FEMEN
• Russia's President Putin is a favourite target and was mobbed in Germany
• Putin has recently found his Twitter feed flooded with topless abuse
• Shevchenko says she is still angry and more protest is planned
• Targets include prostitution, domestic violence, homophobia and fascism

By Ruth Styles

Published: 04:59 EDT, 15 May 2014 | Updated: 10:28 EDT, 15 May 2014

They are the feminists famous for staging topless protests, with Vladimir Putin, Paris Fashion Week and Germany's Next Top Model among those treated to a bare-breasted display.

Now founder member and leader of FEMEN France, Inna Shevchenko, 23, has thrown open the doors of the organisation's Paris HQ to a British film crew.

Shevchenko, who was given political asylum in France last year, has masterminded the expansion of the feminist organisation, adding branches in Canada, Germany and Israel to the original Ukrainian movement.

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Protest: Shevchenko leads a FEMEN protest in Paris against Government plans to toughen abortion laws

But despite catapulting the movement to international prominence, Shevchenko says much more still needs to be done. 

'When they ask me how [FEMEN] started, I say I have a big reason because I was born as a woman in this time and in this society,' she elaborates.

'And at some point, you look around and you understand that you don't want to live like your mother, you don't want to live like your aunt, you don't want to live like your neighbours.

'You want something different but you don't know what because no one told you that there was something different.

'At the beginning it was just anger inside and we still keep it inside and it's growing with every new action - it's growing.'

Militant: Shevchenko at FEMEN's Paris HQ and right, taking a chainsaw to a wooden cross in central Kiev

Leaders: Inna (centre) with fellow FEMEN leaders, Sacha Shevchenko (left) and Oksana Shachko (right)

'Actions' over the last year have included an angry protest against violence during a pro-Russian rally in the Crimean city of Simferopol, mobbing Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a visit to a polling station and interrupting anti-abortion rallies in Canada and Spain.

Other targets have included Russia's President Putin (still a favourite), religious groups of all denominations and prostitution.

Shevchenko herself is no stranger to any of them, and is regularly to be found in the thick of the action, topless and daubed with painted slogans.

'We're using topless style of protest to show that women are protesting,' she explains of the group's famous bare-breasted protests.

The method even extends to the internet with Putin (yes, him again) becoming the target of a slew of topless photos, each featuring the legend: 'F*** YOU PUTIN!'

It's an approach that can sometimes prove controversial, as Shevchenko herself knows only too well after being forced to flee Ukraine following a stunt that provoked the ire of authorities and church groups alike.

Angry: Shevchenko, pictured right, says she and activists from FEMEN will continue for as long as they're angry

Fighting back: Italian police drag a FEMEN activist protesting about Silvio Berlusconi's behaviour away

No to fashion: A pair of FEMEN activists stormed the Nina Ricci catwalk during Paris Fashion Week last autumn

'One year ago I chainsawed through an eight-metre wooden cross in the middle of main square in Kiev,' she remembers fondly.

'We were protesting about the connection between the garments of church and the influence of religion on society.'

But her protest, which made headlines around the world, would have serious consequences for the then fledgling campaigner.

'One morning I woke up because I heard the secret service knocking on the door,' she reveals. 'I was kind of ready for that situation and I left the country through the window, through the balcony of my apartment.

Thrown out: A pair of FEMEN activists are manhandled by guards after storming Germany's Next Top Model

Plastic: An activist bearing the slogan, 'Life in Plastic is Not Fantastic', outside the Barbie House in Germany

Protest: A FEMEN activist is dragged away after a protest during a pro-Russia rally in Simferopol in Crimea

'It was on the first floor and I had my passport and mobile telephone and since that day I didn't come back to Ukraine.'

Her flight left her cut off from friends and family in Ukraine, although the bullish Shevchenko says being part of FEMEN makes up for the separation.

'It's not my job, what I do,' she explains. 'It's not my job, it's my life. I'm activist more than daughter of someone and I'm activist more than, I don't know, friend of someone and I'm activist more than girlfriend of someone.

'It's not my job, it's my life. That's it. How many times do I have to repeat it?'

Inna Shevchenko appears on Outsiders with Darren McMullen, Friday at 10pm on National Geographic Channel.