MOSCOW, May 23 (UPI) -- Russian authorities have closed a news Web site and charged an editor for publishing an article calling President Vladimir Putin "Russia's phallic symbol."
The Cursiv.ru site was shut down Monday over the article written by Vladimir Rakhmankov, who defended his work as "harmless satire," the daily Kommersant newspaper reported.
Rakhmankov wrote the article after Putin's state of the nation address last week in which he called for Russian families to have more children.
Rakhmankov wrote that Putin's influence was so great that even animals in Russian zoos responded to his call to breed immediately.
"I see nothing criminal about my article," Rakhmankov said.
However, investigators confiscated the site's computers and sealed the office, and Mosnews said Rakhmankov's apartment had been searched and his computer confiscated.
