Oksana Shachko, Femen co-founder, found dead in Paris at 31

Oksana Shachko, a co-founder of the Ukrainian feminist activist group Femen, was found dead in her Paris apartment on July 23, 2018. The 31-year-old had hanged herself in a closet. Shachko was born in 1987 in Ukraine and co-founded Femen in 2008, a group known for topless protests against patriarchy, authoritarianism, and the sex trade. She left the group in 2013 after internal conflicts with leader Inna Shevchenko and was granted asylum in France. There, she studied at the École des Beaux Arts, lived in squats, and turned to painting, creating icon-inspired works on gold backgrounds featuring female figures with winged horses and sacred symbols. She had attempted suicide twice before. Her death was announced on Facebook by fellow co-founder Anna Goutsol, who called her 'the bravest and the most vulnerable.'