Russian ambassador met by protests at Soviet war cemetery in Warsaw

Protest

Demonstrators in Poland attempted to prevent Russia’s ambassador from laying a wreath in a Soviet war cemetery in the Polish capital.

This took place on Tuesday during commemorations of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

A crowd of protesters surrounded Russian Ambassador Sergei Andreyev when he got out of his limousine in front of the Soviet Military Cemetery in Warsaw.

The report was according to photos of the incident widely shared online.

The demonstrators chanted an insult that combines “Russia’’ and “fascist’’ at Andreyev after he arrived at the cemetery.

The insult had been used since the beginning of the war in Ukraine to describe Russian occupiers during the invasion.

The path into the cemetery was blocked by a crowd holding numerous crosses with Ukrainian flags as well as cardboard skyscrapers inscribed with the names of heavily bombarded Ukrainian cities.

Andreyev laid the wreath in front of the Ukrainian flags before driving away.

In 2022, protesters in Warsaw doused Andreyev in red liquid on May 9.

Poland, a member of the European Union and the NATO military alliance, had been one of Ukraine’s biggest political and military supporters since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the neighbouring country in February 2022.

The country is also now home to about 1.58 million Ukrainian refugees.

Russia and a number of other countries of the former Soviet Union celebrate Victory Day on May 9, the date of the German surrender in 1945 in Moscow and other eastern time zones.

The park-like Soviet Military Cemetery in Warsaw was laid out a few years after the end of the war.

The remains of more than 20,000 Soviet soldiers who fell in 1944 and 1945 are buried there.

(dpa/NAN)