Diplomatic challenge from Moscow: the city has renamed the square in front of the US embassy after the “Donetsk People’s Republic”. Washington should be forced to refer to the unrecognized state by providing the address. It is not the first time that street names are used in politics.
Russia renames the square in front of the American embassy in Moscow after the separatist “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR), provoking new tensions with the USA. A corresponding decree for renaming was published on Wednesday by the city administration. The move will force the US embassy to refer to the DPR, which Washington does not recognize as an independent state, when providing its address.
The initiative for renaming came from the Moscow City Duma. The final name was determined by means of an online survey – however, in addition to the DPR, only “the defenders of the Donbass” and the separatist Vladimir Shoga, who fell in March, were available for selection. From the outset, the move was aimed at angering Washington. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov publicly supported the project.
Such a provocation of diplomats is not a new phenomenon of the Ukraine war. In Washington, the square in front of the Russian embassy was renamed Boris Nemtsov Plaza in 2018, after Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition politician who was shot dead in 2014. Moscow reacted angrily to this.
The Czech capital Prague followed suit with Nemtsov Square in 2020 in front of the Russian Embassy. A path leading along the embassy was also named after Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist critical of the Kremlin who was also shot. The Russian embassy then used a consulate building for its address designation for a long time. After the start of the war against Ukraine, the Prague authorities changed the name of the street here as well. Since then it has been called “Street of Ukrainian Heroes”.
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