Wellington City Council workers remove Zelenskyy support message from outside Russian Embassy

Wellington City Council workers have removed a sign which renamed the street the Russian Embassy is on to Zelenskiy Rd in honour of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The sticker was noticed yesterday on the Messines Rd street sign but by Friday morning it was gone.

Richard MacLean, the head of communications at Wellington City Council, said council workers pulled it down overnight.

The road sign used the spelling "Zelenskiy", which is an alternative spelling the President has used before and also included what looked like a sunflower – the national flower of Ukraine.

National MP Nicola Willis posted an image of the sticker on her Facebook page, saying it appeared the embassy had a new name. She accompanied the message with "Slava Ukraini!" - a phrase which translates to "Glory to Ukraine".

My neighbourhood is home to the Russian Embassy. Seems like their street just found itself a new name. Slava Ukraini! 🇺🇦

Posted by Nicola Willis MP on Wednesday, March 9, 2022

President Zelenskyy has become a household name since Russia's invasion of Ukraine almost a month ago. The 44-year-old former comedian and actor was elected in 2019, and his defiant response to the invasion has earned him international praise.

The Embassy of the Russian Federation in Wellington has been posting pro-Kremlin messages on social media since the invasion, repeating Russian President Vladimir Putin's claims a "special military operation" is continuing in Ukraine to combat Nazism.

This message has been dismissed by the US and the European Union.

Russia has been accused of war crimes for killing civilians and bombing critical infrastructure such as hospitals.

A Russian airstrike on a Mariupol maternity hospital that killed three people has brought condemnation down on Moscow, with Ukrainian and Western officials branding it a war crime.

US Vice President Kamala Harris, on a visit to Ukraine's neighbour Poland, backed calls for an international war-crimes investigation into the invasion, saying, "The eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities."