The Russian embassy in New York City was vandalized Friday as Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that he would seize four regions in Ukraine.
The embassy did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s questions regarding the incident, but according to video footage, the building appears to have been hit with a large amount of red paint.
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It was unclear if the paint was intended to depict anything in particular or if it was indiscriminately thrown at the embassy’s front walls and entryway.
New Yorkers passing by stopped to look at the vandalism, with some remarking on their surprise that authorities had not yet cleaned it up.
A video of the damage to the building’s exterior was posted to social media just moments after Putin took the stage to address top officials at the Georgievsky Hall of the Great Kremlin Palace in Moscow.
Putin claimed that after a series of referenda that concluded this week – which Western officials and Kyiv have condemned as a “sham” – Moscow had proven it had public support in its quest to illegally annex the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Moscow-instated officials in the regions claimed to have garnered 87% of civilian support in Kherson, 93% in Zaporizhzhia, 98% in Luhansk and 99% in Donetsk.
Putin took aim at the West and Kyiv in an aggressive speech Friday and vowed to use “all available means” if the four regions, which the international community still view as a part of Ukraine, are attacked.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy has said his forces will keep fighting against Russian occupation until all of Ukraine is liberated, including territory that Russia has self-proclaimed as its own.
