The Russian ambassador to Poland was doused with red paint by pro-Ukraine activists in Warsaw on Monday when he tried to lay a wreath to commemorate Victory Day.
Sergei Andreev was attacked at the Soviet Soldiers Cemetery in the Polish capital, where he arrived for the event that marks the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allies.
The ambassador was quickly surrounded by a throng of activists opposed to the Kremlinโs invasion of Ukraine.
Andreev is seen being splattered with red paint being thrown from behind before a protester standing beside him throws a big blob of it in his face.
The group then prevented the ambassador and others from laying their flowers at the cemetery as they carried Ukrainian flags and chanted โfascistโ and โmurdererโ at him.
Some were wearing white sheets smeared with blood, symbolizing the Ukrainian victims of Russiaโs invasion, which was launched Feb. 24.
โIn 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,โ Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.
โThe admirers of neo-Nazism have again shown their faces,โ she said, repeating the Kremlinโs assertion that it is fighting neo-Nazis in Ukraine.โBut 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,โ she added. (NYPost)