Attacks on Russian interests in Europe multiply

Exterior of the Russian embassy in Romania. / Reuters

A man dies after crashing his car into the Russian embassy in Romania, while unknown attackers in Italy attack two mansions of an oligarch close to Putin

Gestures of repudiation towards Russia are multiplying due to the invasion of Ukraine. One of the most violent so far took place in the early hours of Wednesday in Romania, when a man crashed his vehicle into the Russian embassy in Bucharest. The car caught fire in the accident and the driver ended up losing his life. A few hours later, two mansions of the Russian oligarch Vladimir Solovyev, a well-known television presenter considered close to President Vladimir Putin, were attacked in Italy. Solovyev’s assets on Italian territory were already embargoed as a result of European sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine. Last Saturday, in addition, several people threw red paint at the entrance of the Russian embassy in the Czech Republic as a symbol of the blood of the Ukrainian victims of the war.

According to the Romanian authorities, the man who rammed his car into the Russian diplomatic mission was called Bogdan Draghici, he was a lawyer and before making this gesture he published a text on his social networks in which he condemned the Russian attack on Ukraine and said: “I am also Ukrainian.” The Russian ambassador, Valery Kuzmin, described what happened as a “terrorist act” and assured that the embassy has received several threats by email. The Romanian Police has opened an investigation and, at the moment, does not rule out any hypothesis about the event carried out by Draghici.

It also tries to clarify who the Italian security forces are behind the attacks on the oligarch Solovyev’s mansions. The two operations are believed to be coordinated: the attempt to damage a villa in Loveno di Menaggio, an exclusive town on the shore of Lake Como, and the graffiti that appeared on another property owned by the tycoon in Pianello del Lario, a few kilometers to the north. shores of the same lake. In the pool of this second mansion unknown people threw red paint and wrote ‘murderer’ and ‘no to war’ on the entrance.

The Carabinieri consider that the attackers of the villa of Loveno di Menaggio, which is under construction, did not really intend to destroy the building, as they limited themselves to throwing burning tires. A neighbor alerted to see the smoke alerted the firefighters, who put out the fire without much trouble. Investigators believe that if they wanted to set the building on fire, the assailants would have acted with more forceful methods.