Moscow has followed Washington’s lead by renaming the streets and squares where their embassies are located in the Russian capital.
Russian authorities have officially renamed the two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, where fierce fighting is taking place.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized their independence in February before sending in Russian forces to “liberate” them from Ukraine.
Washington and London do not recognize the “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, but officials in Moscow said they would at least have to know the new addresses of their embassies.
A sign was raised on Friday announcing the renaming of the street on which the British embassy is located to “Square of the Lugansk People’s Republic”, while the US Embassy in Moscow has been located since last month on “Square of the Donetsk People’s Republic”.
But Washington was the initiator. In the 1980s, it renamed the 16th Street section outside the Soviet embassy in Washington to Andrei Sakharov, in honor of the Soviet nuclear physicist, prominent human rights activist and dissident.
Since 2018, the section of Wisconsin Street where the new Russian embassy is located has been renamed to Boris Nemtsov, who was killed following leading anti-Putin protests and exposing corruption in official circles.
He was shot dead near the Kremlin in 2015.
The address of the Russian Embassy in London remains, for the time being at least, as it is in the gardens of Kensington Palace.
