Hundreds of Ukrainians rioted outside the Russian embassy in Kiev on Saturday night after pro-Russian separatists in the country’s troubled east shot down an army transport plane, killing all 49 on board.
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Russia was outraged.
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Ukraine’s acting foreign minister, Andrii Deshchytsia, attempted to calm protesters down. “We must fulfill our international obligations, including defending the right of Russia to have an embassy in Ukraine,” he said.
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Those in the furious crowd weren’t having it. “Did I say that I am against you protesting? I am for you protesting,” Deshchytsia continued. “I’m ready to stand here with you and say, ‘Russia, get out of Ukraine! Yes, ‘Putin khuilo,’ he added.
Deshchytsia was referring to a popular song that calls Putin a khuilo, which literally means “fucking hideous effigy” or “giant cock” but is best translated as “dickhead” or “fucker.” Protesters then sang “Putin khuilo!” as Deshchytsia looked on, slightly bemused. youtube.com
The song has swept the country since pro-unity soccer fans debuted it before a match in the city of Kharkiv in March.
There’s even a campaign to get foreign fans to sing it during Russia’s matches at the World Cup in Brazil. (Ukraine didn’t qualify.) youtube.com
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told his French counterpart Laurent Fabius that he was “over the inaction of the Kiev authorities who allowed the rioting outside the Russian embassy,” according to a ministry statement.
Police were slow to intervene to stop the violence, though Ukraine’s foreign ministry later claimed that several instigators had been arrested. Most of the job protecting the embassy was done by “self-defense units” left over from protests that overthrew disgraced former president Viktor Yanukovych, a Russia ally, in February. SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP / Getty Images
Lavrov filed an official note of protest against the “bacchanalia” to Kiev on Sunday. Konstantin Dolgov, one of his deputies, said the incident “just goes to show the political culture, or rather, lack thereof, of the people in power in Kiev.”
Lavrov famously once asked David Milliband, then UK foreign minister, “Who the fuck are you to lecture me?!” during a discussion of the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Yves Herman / Reuters / Reuters
Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov, told state TV that the attack on the embassy had been “carefully planned.”
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Western governments also condemned the riot and called on Ukraine to uphold its international obligations to protect the embassy.
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“My statement was a way to show my discontent peacefully,” Deshchtysia told Russian radio, before backtracking and claiming he hadn’t made a “statement.”
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