A major Paris-based Russian cultural institution was attacked with a Molotov cocktail on Sunday night, newspaper Le Parisien reported - the most serious targeting of a Russian building in France since the start of the war in Ukraine.
A security guard at the “Russian House of Science and Culture” alerted police after discovering that the gate of the building had been attacked, the report said. The office, located in the French capital’s wealthy 16th district, enjoys diplomatic status.
The MRSC referred callers to the Russian embassy in Paris. A spokesperson for the embassy did not immediately reply to a request for comment. On its Twitter page, the Russian embassy shared video footage of an explosion near the gate of a building and called on “the French authorities to ensure the security of official Russian representatives in France”.
Buildings linked to Russia had been targeted several times since the country’s military invaded neighbouring Ukraine in what Moscow describes as a “special military operation”, but which has been condemned by numerous countries as an attack on a sovereign state.