Moscow has taken a page out of Washington’s playbook and tricked the United States and Britain by renaming the streets in front of their embassies in the Russian capital.
The streets are now officially named after two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, where the fighting is now most intense. Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized their independence in February before sending troops to “liberate” them from Ukraine.
The United States and Britain have yet to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics,” but Moscow officials have said they must at least recognize the new addresses if they want to receive mail.
A sign appeared Friday renaming the street in front of the British embassy as Lugansk People’s Republic Square. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has been located on Donetsk People’s Republic Square since last month.
However, the U.S. has been playing this game for much longer. in the 1980s, the section of 16th Street outside the Soviet Embassy in Washington was symbolically renamed Andrei Sakharov Square in honor of the Soviet nuclear physicist and leading human rights activist and dissident.
Since 2018, the portion of Wisconsin Avenue in front of the new Russian Embassy has been symbolically known as Boris Nemtsov Square. Nemtsov, an opposition leader who led anti-Putin protests and worked to expose official corruption, was shot and killed near the Kremlin in 2015.
For the time being at least, the Russian Embassy in London retains its more genteel address in Kensington Palace Gardens.