The Russian ambassador to Poland was attacked with red paint by pro-Ukraine activists in Warsaw on Monday when he tried to lay a wreath to mark Victory Day, according to video footage and Russian officials.
Victory Day is celebrated annually on May 9 to commemorate the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. This year’s events are taking place as Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine enters its third month.
“In Warsaw, during the laying of a wreath at the cemetery of Soviet soldiers, an attack was carried out on the Russian ambassador to Poland, Sergei Andreev, and the Russian diplomats accompanying him,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.
“The admirers of neo-Nazism have again shown their faces,” she said, repeating the Kremlin’s assertion that Russia is fighting neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
Russia’s ambassador to Poland got a facefull of red paint today when trying to lay flowers at the graves of Soviet WWII soldiers in Warsaw. The crowd is chanting “fascists!” pic.twitter.com/hWHGPFnI7M
— Kevin Rothrock (@KevinRothrock) May 9, 2022
“But as I have said before, we cannot be intimidated. It must be terrible for the inhabitants of Europe to see their own reflections in the mirror.”
Images released by Russian news agencies showed Andreev and several other men with red paint splattered across their clothes and faces, surrounded by a chanting crowd, some holding Ukrainian flags.
In other videos of the incident circulating online, pro-Ukraine activists can be heard chanting “fascists, fascists!”
Andreev told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that he was not seriously harmed in the attack.
Poland has accepted hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring Ukraine since the Russian invasion began.
“The admirers of neo-Nazism have again shown their faces,” she said, repeating the Kremlin’s assertion that Russia is fighting neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
“But as I have said before, we cannot be intimidated. It must be terrible for the inhabitants of Europe to see their own reflections in the mirror.”
Images released by Russian news agencies showed Andreev and several other men with red paint splattered across their clothes and faces, surrounded by a chanting crowd, some holding Ukrainian flags.
In other videos of the incident circulating online, pro-Ukraine activists can be heard chanting “fascists, fascists!”
Andreev told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that he was not seriously harmed in the attack.
Poland has accepted hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring Ukraine since the Russian invasion began.