Calgary: Russian Orthodox Church is vandalised with red paint

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World leaders have made some attempts to distance the actions of the Russian President himself from the people of Russia. But as Putin’s war ran into its sixth day, reports emerged of Russians – not in Russia but in the West – facing persecution.

Bloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidskiy – himself a “disillusioned emigrant” from Russia – drew attention this morning, on Tuesday, to the vandalisation of a school in Berlin.

In a post on Twitter, he said: “The school to which a lot of bilingual Russian kids go in Berlin was vandalised today.

“This is rapidly getting out of hand.

“We can volunteer to help Ukraine all we want, the backlash is already here.”

There are those, he added, “will always try to take it out on the kids”.

Some have called on the German Government to condemn this reported act of discrimination.

Mr Bershidskiy did not detail the form the vandalisation took.

Such a response has been stoked not just in Europe but in Canada, too.

READ MORE: Putin looking ‘puffy faced’ as actions ‘driven by personal factors’

On Saturday evening, shortly after evening service at the All Saints Russian Orthodox Church in Calgary came to an end, a man jumped a fence to get to the property, attempted to open a locked door and, failing this, poured red paint on the building’s door and steps.

Priest Dmitry Grygoryev, who was born and raised in Ukraine (along with around 30 percent of his church) before moving to Russia and later to Canada, described this as an act of hate which wilfully ignored the fact “we are praying for the peace and unity of Ukrainian and Russian people”.

He told CTV News Calgary: “I feel very sorry for this guy.

“I kind of understand his motivation – he probably feels pain of all the situation, the political situation, that is happening in Ukraine right now and probably he was just trying to express his emotions.

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“But, again, church is outside of politics.”

He added that “pretty much everyone” in his church had either friends or relatives in Ukraine who feel “worried” about ongoing events.

In a recent address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed most Russians were “shocked by the brutality of the Russian Government”.

Despite this and other such efforts, a more general anti-Russian sentiment appears to have reared its head in recent weeks, spurred by Putin’s war games.

Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens, who live in Russia during the collapse of the Soviet Union, described the “hysteria” that has emerged in the wake of the invasion as akin to the “lunacy that led to Dachshunds being kicked in the street in 1914, for being German”.

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