RIPPLE EFFECT

Woman Attacked While Protesting Ukraine Invasion at Russian Consulate

A protester wrote on social media that a staffer of the consulate had carried out the assault.

A woman demonstrating outside the Russian consulate in Rio de Janeiro was assaulted on Friday in an incident captured on video. The victim and the woman taking the video, who are both Russians citizens, said they were protesting the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when the assailant—also a Russian citizen—came out of the building and forcibly slapped one of them on the back. Video of the attack uploaded to social media by another protester identified the assailant as an employee of the consulate. Police, who had been nearby watching the incident unfold, took the attacker to the station, while the victim went to undergo a medical examination. The independent Russian news site Meduza reports that the woman said she has since been receiving threats from the consulate. Brazil’s newly elected leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has attempted to place himself in a mediating role between Russia and Ukraine, proposing a working group to negotiate peace talks and refusing to place all blame on either side.