Russian Ambassador to Poland Had to Pay Tribute to Fallen Ukrainians with Flowers for Soviet Monument

The Russian ambassador in Poland had to pay tribute to fallen Ukrainians by laying flowers at a Soviet monument.

In Warsaw, activists blocked the ambassador's path to the Soviet monument with a new memorial to Ukrainians who died as a result of Russian aggression, causing the ambassador to lay the flowers in front of this installation.

According to activists from the "Euromaidan-Warsaw" initiative and activist Natalia Panchenko, they created a huge installation around the Soviet soldiers' monument in Warsaw, depicting war-ravaged Ukrainian cities and symbolic graves of deceased Ukrainians. The idea was for the ambassador to "either walk like a human being through the main entrance, passing through Mariupol, Bucha, and Irpin, which were shelled by the Russians, and deliberately walk through the graves and blood of Ukrainians, or crawl like a child through the bushes at the side entrances."

The ambassador eventually did not approach the monument itself and left the brought flowers before the installation created by the activists.

Russian Ambassador Sergei Andreev expressed regret that for the second year in a row, he could not pay tribute to Soviet soldiers due to such obstacles, but he immediately added that it does not "upset him."

The Russian embassy asked the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to "organise the protection of public order" on May 9.

In 2022, Andreev was doused with artificial blood on May 9 (Ukr).