Moscow: A Russian performance artist has been hospitalised after stripping naked and nailing his testicles to a Red Square cobblestone in protest against the Kremlin's crackdown on political rights.

A video of the graphic action, available on Russian websites, shows artist Pyotr Pavlensky sitting naked outside Lenin's Mausoleum being covered with a blanket by police officers while horrified passers by look on.

The state-run RIA Novosti news agency says Mr Pavlensky was taken to a police station after being treated in a central Moscow clinic.

The Saint Petersburg-based artist said in a statement posted on the Grani.ru website that he was trying to draw attention to Russian society's inaction in the face of the development of a police state.