A wrecked Russian tank on display in front of the embassy in Berlin, gun aimed at the entrance. It is a powerful image of Friday’s commemorations in Europe on the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.
The scene is striking, right in the center of the German capital, just a few steps from the Brandenburg Gate: Activists dragged a Russian tank in front of the embassy that night.
This unusual picture attracted many curious people on Friday morning, including classes visiting a school in the German capital.
“We passed and saw a crowd, it’s strange to see a tank like that in the middle of Berlin,” Allen Eapen, a 22-year-old Indian man who is studying in the capital, told AFP.
The “Terrorists’ Gate”
The 1985 T-72 B1 tank was probably destroyed by a mine on March 31, 2022 near Boutcha in the Kiev suburbs. Some of the chains are crushed, as is the turret, partially pulverized.
The khaki paint has been burnished in places by the flames. Many bullet holes can be seen on the carcass, evidence, according to the project’s initiators, that the armored vehicle “actively participated in combat.” The almost 2.3 meter high tube of the 44-ton tank is intact and points to the headquarters of the Russian embassy on Unter den Linden avenue.
“It’s impressive, it’s a good (protest) opportunity to demonstrate in front of the embassy,” says Lorenzo Graif, a 22-year-old Chilean who is also studying in Berlin.
“We see this reality, although it is usually far away,” Sabine Ertl, a German woman on vacation with her family, told AFP on the battlefield.
After a long dispute with the Berlin city hall, the organizers of this demonstration have received permission to uncover the wreckage, which came from the Kiev Museum of Military History and is on display until Sunday. “We want to put your junk in front of the terrorists’ door,” explains one of the initiators, Wieland Giebel.
“We want to protest against Russian aggression and express our solidarity,” lawyer Bender Harrer Krevet, one of the initiators, told AFP.
The Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin, Oleksii Makeiev, is scheduled to visit the wreck site later in the day. A solidarity demonstration for Ukraine is also planned for the early afternoon on this large avenue in the city centre.
For a few weeks now, a kind of box measuring three by three meters has been uncovered near the tank, an exact replica of the cell of the Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny, which can be viewed by passers-by.
spilled paint
Exactly one year to the day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, demonstrations of support and solidarity with the Ukrainians are multiplying in Europe.
In Paris, the Eiffel Tower was illuminated in yellow and blue colors on Thursday evening, as were the European Commission and Parliament buildings in Brussels, or the National Theater in Warsaw and the Place d’Armes in the heart of Luxembourg.
The colors of Ukraine were hoisted in front of the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt. The Portuguese Parliament and most parties celebrated the first anniversary with a minute’s silence.
In London, gallons of paint were dumped outside the Russian Embassy to repaint the pavement in Ukrainian colours, and hundreds of people gathered in Trafalgar Square. When asked, Kenya Miletska said she was surprised at the support in the UK: “It’s incredible when you carry a Ukrainian flag, people tell you ‘Slava Ukraini’ (Honor of Ukraine, ed.). You know what that means”.
In Berlin, the peace sign was drawn with dozens of candles at the foot of the Brandenburg Gate on Thursday evening.